) IrOLD TALES OF W AR TIMES VROLD F. BI IRVINE RE-TOLD TALES _ -^ or Little Stories of War Times French and Indian Wars The Revolutionary War The War of 1812 The Mexican War The Civil War and The Part Kensington Played in Them By HAROLD F. BLAKE ' The old home-fire where the red sparks race Up the broad-backed chimney, in the old home place ! How far we've wandered from its friendly gleams From the home-winds singing through the day's still dreams ! Wandered weary in the far, false lights, Yearning vainly for the old home-nights For winter-silence on theifrost-flecked ways And the broad-backed chimney with the home-fire's blaze ! " (COPYRIGHT 1917, BY H. F. BLAKE. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED) FARMINGTON, MAINE THE KNOWLTON & McLEARY CO. 1917 LIBRARY UnJv*ry of IRVJNH <r- <J 3 hJO ^ C EC u Dedicated To Those Whom it Concerns Most The Kensington Soldier TO the general reader it can be said that this little booklet of stories has been prepared and printed largely to please a few dear old friends, veterans of the Civil War, who have asked me to tell their story ; primarily, to be sure, for the purpose of bringing together and thus making up a complete muster roll, as complete as is humanly possible, fifty years after the first one was made up, of the names of the Kensington men and boys who " went to the war " always meaning the war of 1861-5. As I conceive it, the story or stories I tell, while they are to be retold tales simply, they will be the better for being told in the kitchen, where we can sit around and be cheered by the mellow warmth of the crackling fire in the old wood stove ; and where we can smoke our pipes if we list, as in the days when as " boys in blue " you, with your comrades, sat around the night's campfire under the southern stars and smoked your pipes ; and when in fancy, it may be, you saw in the red glowing coals, and in the bright upward swirling flames, faces and forms of dear ones in the far off homeland father, mother, wife, children, or sweetheart; and though seeing 4 RE-TOLD TALES OF WAR TIMES. them, and your heart swelled, your lips quivered and eye moistened, there was no faltering. Yes, as it was with thee, dear friends, so it was with tens of thousands. Before these " re-told tales " leave my hands for- ever and a day, I desire to express my obligations and thanks to my mother, Mrs. Mary C. Blake, to Mr. Weare Nudd Shaw, the " Sage of Orchard Hill," to Mr. Joseph N. Austin, to Mr. Benjamin F. Austin, to Mr. James W. W. Brown, to Mr. George A. Baston and to Mr. John P. M. Green, all veterans of the " War between the States," save one, and she a soldier's widow, for their kindly assistance to me in my efforts to bring together the full list of names of every Kensington man and boy who enlisted, donned his " suit of blue," shouldered his old muzzle-loading Springfield rifle, and with it served his country in the dark and perilous days, 1861-5. And so, while I have told the tales these dear friends have asked me to tell, I have told them, nay, in many places repeated " thought, word and inci- dent " I have told them in my own way. Know- ing that, though they have been crudely told, they will please them, what care I for the opinion of the literary wise critic Nothing ! So long as my friends and their friends shall find pleasure in them I shall be satisfied and fully compensated for my labors in their preparation. HAROLD F. BLAKE. Montreal, P. Q., May 31, 1916. RE-TOLD TALES OF WAR TIMES IF the Reader please, perhaps the best way to approach the subject matter, the excuse for printing this booklet at all Kensington's story of the Civil War will be to tell briefly the stories of the earlier wars, in which Kensington men and women played their parts. And, therefore, as a preface, let me say that the long, long years of the pioneers' constant warfare with the Indian, when to open up clearings in the forests of Hampton, a part of which is now Kensington, for settlement, the old blunderbuss, and later the flint- lock rifle, was as necessary as the woodman's axe; yea, more so, for without the rifle there could have been no axe used. Indeed, we know that down to reliable historical times the settler, to defend himself from sudden attack and treachery of the crafty savages, to have it ready for instant use, leaned his firearm against the tree he was felling. Hence it was that generation after generation of our ancestors, through this constant use of the rifle, made of the Ken- sington men when called to arms, whether in defence of the "settle- ment," the colony, the State or the nation, not only hardy and zeal- ous but very efficient soldiers. Hence it was: I The French and Indian Wars, 1756-1763 TRADITION says that there were thirteen men of the soil of Kensington who fought as British Colonials under Captain Ebenezer Webster (father of Daniel Webster) during this very wicked and cruel war between the British and French, and their Indian allies, the latter fighting with tomahawk, scalping-knife and poisoned arrow ; and they made extended campaigns into New York, Vermont (it is now) and into Canada, and some of them were under 6 RE-TOLD TALES OF WAR TIMES. General Wolfe when he fought General Montcalm at Quebec and captured that city in 1759; but who these our townsmen were or what their names there are no records to tell us. This we do know, how- ever : Whoever they were, or whatever their names, being of the blood of the English a-nd of the Scotch and of the Irish, and from Kensington, they would and did acquit themselves like men. II The Revolutionary War, 1775-1782 FROM the beginning it has been one of the proud boasts of Kensington that its people have always been loyal, ever ready to serve their country and its institutions. And so, in the days when the Colonies revolted against Great Britain, not against the country of Pitt, Burke, Sheridan and Fox, but against King George the Third in his crazy attempt to levy and collect taxes, taxation without representation, Kensington raised and equipped two full companies, furnished three commissioned officers, Major Jeremiah Fogg, Captain Winthrop Rowe, Captain Ezekial Worthen, and one doctor, Dr. Benjamin Rowe. In all, eighty-nine of Kensington's own sons en- listed, and to these she added fourteen nonresidents which she was able to get to join the men composing her two companies ; and thus we see that all in all 103 Kensington men shouldered their old flintlock mus- kets, and with powderhorn and bullet-pouch slung at their sides, marched to join the forces under General HAROLD F. BLAKE. 7 Warren. And they fought with him at Bunker Hill, with General Washington at Dorchester Heights and elsewhere ; aye, from the very beginning to the end of the Seven Years' War, to the end that the Ameri- can Colonies might become a nation of free and in- dependent people. The following are the names of the Kensington men who fought in the Revolutionary War, the 103 immortals : Josiah Blake, Hezekiah Blake, John Blake, Moses Blake, Joseph Batchelder, Jeremiah Batchelder, Amos Brown, Stephen Brown, Dennis Bickford, Phillip Blaisdell, Edward Clifford, Samuel Clifford, Joseph Clifford, Thomas Creighton, Daniel Clark, Hezekiah Colby, Thomas Cook, Benjamin Dow, Jabez Dow, Joseph Dow, Edward Eastman, William Evans, Wil- liam Fogg, Major Jeremiah Fogg, Joseph Fogg, Nathan Fellows, Jonathan Fellows, Humphrey Flood, Jeremiah Folsom, William French, William Fernald, Jonathan Glidden, Joseph B. Hoyt, Josiah Haines, Jude Hall (colored), Caleb Hodgdon, Hanson Hodg- don, Timothy Knox, Will Killey, Jonathan Lane, Samuel Longfellow, Josiah Locke, Ozzum Locke, Edward Locke, Timothy Blake Locke, Nathan Lov- ering, William Leavett, Edward Leavett, Robert Miller (colored), Jeremiah Moulton, William Morri- son, Jonathan Mason, John Nichols, Jesse Prescott, Jonathan Prescott, Marston Prescott, Charles Page, Aaron Page, Phineas Page, Daniel Page, Robert Pike, Jonathan Perkins, Moses Perkins, David Phil- brick, Captain Winthrop Rowe, Dr. Benjamin Rowe, Jonathan Rawlins, Thomas Rawlins, Jeremiah San- born, Jonathan Sanborn, Jewett Sanborn, Sherborn 8 RE-TOLD TALES OF WAR TIMES. Sanborn, Moses Sanborn, John Sanborn, Abraham Sanborn, Moses Shaw, Caleb Shaw, Caleb Shaw, Jr., Joseph Shaw, Abraham Shaw, Isaac Shaw, Jonathan Stevens, Daniel Stewart, Stephen Smith, Edward Smith, Samuel Smith, Benjamin Swain, Samuel Sanders, Edward True, Daniel True, Edward Tuck, Jonathan Ward, Melzer Ward, Daniel Weare, Josiah White, Samuel Wilson, Simon Winslow, Joseph Welsh, Nathan Watson, John Webber, W. Wiggin, Captain Ezekiel Worthen, Enoch Worthen. 1 In looking through these one hundred, and three names how many of them are familiar and dear to us, even to those of this generation ; aye, more, how proud not only their descendants but all the inhabi- tants of the town itself should be to read these names the names of the sons of Kensington who fought the long and weary fight that there might be a new flag, a new freedom, a new nation. If the reader has not already noted let the writer point out : That of the 103 men enlisted seventy-eight of them had plain Scriptural names. That of the 103 men but three of them had middle names. That in two instances at least a father and son en- listed and served, namely, Caleb Shaw and Caleb Shaw, Jr., and Caleb Hodgdon and his son Hanson. That there were two Negroes and we wonder whose slaves they were, if slaves. 1 My thanks are due and are hereby tendered to my friends, Rev. Roland D. Sawyer and George Osgood, Esquire, for their courtesy in supplementing my list with additional names of the Kensington men engaged in the Revo- lutionary War, and which has undoubtedly enabled me to give a complete roster of our patriotic ancestors who were engaged in that war. HAROLD F. BLAKE. That one family furnished two officers Captain and Doctor Rowe. That one family sent three brothers Jeremiah, William and Joseph Fogg, and that Jeremiah was made a major and served as adjutant with his regi- ment at Bunker Hill and from thence throughout the war. It is probable that there were other fathers and sons and brothers who served gallantly throughout the war with credit to themselves and to the honor and glory of their town, as every man did. Another proud boast of Kensington is : It never produced a Tory. It will be a surprise, no doubt, to most of my readers to learn that twenty Tories, by order of Gen- eral Washington, were sent from New York state to Kensington, and there kept as prisoners of war during many months of our War for Independence, but such is the fact. The names of these prisoners, and the names of the Kensington men and woman in whose custody they were placed were as follows : These five prisoners, Daniel Bedel, John Vande- burg, Jonathan Dewell, Henry Vandeburg and Balc- tis VanKleuk, were placed in the custody of Nathaniel Weare. These three, Timothy Dewell, Silas Dewell and Robert Dewell, were placed in the custody of Jona- than Purington. These four, Jacob Sharpston, Derk VanVleet, Hugh Vosher and John Degroaf, were placed in the care and custody of Winthrop Rowe. These two, Henry Younghome and Courtriet Smith, were placed in custody of Nathaniel Healey. 10 RE-TOLD TALES OF WAR TIMES. These four, George Peters, EHas Doty, Peter Van- deburg and Solomon Eltinge, were placed for safe keeping with the " Widow Do\v." (It would be in- teresting to know whose widow this brave and patri- otic woman was.) These two, John Schaffelt and Casper Rowe, were the prisoners kept by Benjamin Moulton. And thus we see that not only did our beloved town send 103 of her patriotic sons to help make up the Continental army, but kept twenty Tory prisoners within its borders during the war. Knowing the dire needs for money, and the utter lack of it in the hands of the Treasurer of the Colo- nies during the entire length of the war, may we not wonderingly ask who it was that paid for the " keep " of these Tory prisoners? There are no records to show the payment of any such bills, and if paid at all, payments were made in Continental money, which was not worth the paper it was printed on, though it was redeemed many years after the war. Patriots, as we have seen, the men of Kensington were, and the presumption is and it 's the writer's opinion that these five well-to-do farmers, including the Widow Dow, kept these Tory prisoners at their own expense, and in doing so showed their patriotism and served their country as disinterestedly as did their neighbors and townsmen who served in the army. I Ill War of 1812 N the fall of 1814, during our " second war " with Great Britain, seventy-two men belonging to HAROLD F. BLAKE. 11 one of the militia companies of Kensington, under command of Captain Stephen Brown, being fully ac- coutred and equipped (those were the days of real preparedness), marched through Exeter, Stratham and Greenland to the defence of Portsmouth ; but the enemy, while appearing in force off Portsmouth when the alarm was sent out to the militia of the State, having suddenly withdrawn, our gallant men at once returned to their homes. Speaking of the march of Kensington men to the defence of Portsmouth, "Orchard Hill" tells us in the Exeter News-Letter that " In September, 1814, Governor John Taylor Gilman called out the militia to go to Portsmouth as a squadron of British war vessels were off our coast. A company from our town, Captain Stephen Brown commanding, was called on for seventy-two men. They were out only fourteen days. Other towns sent later. One of our men who was called for was afraid to go and hid in his father's barn, but was found after three days and sent to Portsmouth." " In 1855, Congress passed a law giving every sol- dier who served fourteen days in the War of 1812 a quarter section of land, 160 acres. This man who actually served but eleven days was not entitled to it, but he employed Ira Blake, Esq., to help him to get it. Mr. Blake argued thus with the War De- partment : That seventeen miles was a military day's journey and as Kensington was twenty miles from Portsmouth that would give the man two days going and the same returning ; four days, added to the eleven days he served, made a day to spare. So the man got his quarter section of land and later sold it 12 RE-TOLD TALES OF WAR TIMES. for $160.00. Another Kensington man who went down with the company died before this law was passed, but his three minor children drew his quarter section and later sold it for $100.00." And thus the Government recognized the sturdy men of Kensington, who had again served their country in time of war. The reader will note that " other towns sent later," which fact enables me to point out that Kensington was always first and foremost in every forward move- ment. As for the names of those of our ancestors who thus served their country, as the old rhyme had it: " Here follow the names of The Kensington militia men, Who marched to Portsmouth, And then back again." Stephen Brown, captain, Dennis Bickford, John Ward, Samuel Smith, Timothy Knox, John Nocolle, Thomas Rawlins, Joseph Brown, Nathan Watson, John Webber, Hezekiah Colby, Edward Eastman, Edward Leavett, Samuel Wilson, Timothy Knutes, Samuel Sanders, John Mason, Charles Page, William I. Killey, Samuel Winslow, Philip Blaisdell, Edward True, William Fernal French, Daniel True, Zacheus Roberts, Jotham Milliard, Robert Forsaith, Samuel Lamprey, Stephen Kimball, Benjamin Prescott, David Prescott, Nathan Dow, Caleb Brown, John Nudd, Jeremy Batchelder, Jonathan Hobbs, John M. Shaw, Samuel Fellows, Lewis Gove, Joseph D. Wad- leigh, Nathaniel Fellows, Smith Lamprey, Gilman Lamprey, Newell Dow, Wadleigh Dow, Sewell Dow, Lewis Vesey, John Weare, Joseph Poor, Robert HAROLD F. BLAKE. 13 Rowe, Gardiner Green, Samuel Tuck, John Wad- leigh, Benjamin Moulton, Abel Page, Daniel Pres- cott, Abraham Rowe, Oliver James, Sewell Locke, Porter H. Wilson, Joel Lane, John James, John Page, Moses Sanborn, William H. Wadleigh, Sewell Wadleigh, Jeremiah Wadleigh, Ira Fellows, John Blaisdell, Joseph N. Healey seventy-two. In looking through the names of the men who served their country, both in the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812, our rolls of honor, how familiar and dear many of them are ; and precious memories they will ever remain to their descendants and to the citizens of the town. Yes, they will so remain, for we see there enrolled the names of the very best of the old Kensington families, families belonging to the very soil itself, and, like it, of the best. IV Mexican War, 1845-1848 THE Mexican War was not altogether popular at the North at the time, though to-day all his- torians agree that it was not only justified from a moral point of view, and added not only a vast area of territory to our already large domain but it also added tremendously to our national wealth as well as to our political strength at home and abroad. As to Kensington's participation in this war, so far as the records show, or memory serves, Ferdinand L. Blake and John V. Hodgdon were the only two of our men to take part in it. Mr. Blake enlisted at the age of twenty and served in the infantry under General Franklin Pierce, afterwards President Pierce, 14 RE-TOLD TALES OF WAR TIMES. throughout the war, and was honorably discharged at its close. His discharge papers from that service are to-day precious heirlooms in the family of the writer. Mr. Hodgdon served in and was honorably dis- charged from the navy. And thus we see that in our Nation's third war the sinew and strength of the young manhood of the soil of Kensington bore its share in the hardships of war. The Civil War, 1861-1865 AT ( the outset let it be said that while the state- ments made in this war story may not be strictly accurate as to names (though I believe they are mainly so), the general statements made are in all essentials historically correct. As to political conditions in Kensington and in our part of the country generally just before the war was declared, I think that it can be said with truth that previous to April 14, 1861 there were un- doubtedly very large numbers of men belonging to both parties, who believed that if there was to be an intercivic war it would simply be a political war largely brought about by the anti-slavery agitators of the North and the " fire-eaters " of the South, and anyhow it would soon be over. We remember that Seward and Greeley, and even the newly inaugurated president said it would not last three months. As a matter of fact, Lincoln's call for " 75,000 three HAROLD F. BLAKE. 15 months men " shows that the war was not at first taken very seriously. In the beginning, democrats and republicans alike blamed both of the above types of ultra rabid par- tisans for the cause of the bitterness existing between the people of the North and the South at the time of the inaugural of Mr. Lincoln on March 4, 1861. Hence it was that, during the year 1860 and the early part of 1861, there were tens of thousands of men in the North, who said : " If there be war, let the hot-headed politicians who are causing it do the fighting;" and these things were said in no mean party spirit, but in all sincerity, and without thought of disloyalty to the Government. But when the Southern Confederacy, through General Beauregard, struck the first blow at Fort Sumter on April 4, 1861, forty-one days after the inauguration of President Lincoln, then it was not a question of party but of patriotism all through the North, and in no section of the State or country was this sentiment more in evidence than in Kensington. As I have stated elsewhere, politics was always first and foremost in all matters of a public character in Kensington, and so, while the democrats were " Union " men, and with Andrew Jackson believed " That the Union must and shall be preserved," they waited through the year 1861 for the republicans, who, it seemed to them, being supporters of Lincoln, should take the initiative, shottldbe. the leaders in any movement, looking to concerted or formal action necessary to get any considerable number of our townsmen to enlist for the war. The result of this waiting was, that the leaders of neither party took 16 RE-TOLD TALES OF WAR TIMES. any steps to this end until early in the summer of 1862. Even then, as a historical fact, no steps were taken publicly until several private conferences had been held by the democrats, and which resulted in the calling of a public meeting to be held in the town- house. This meeting was largely attended ; the question of enlistment was thoroughly gone into, and especially as to what part Kensington should take in putting down the rebellion. In passing, it should be said to the everlasting credit of the democrats who attended this first or preliminary meeting that, while it was primarily a meeting of democrats and in their hands, they were not there as party men to talk politics, but patriot- ism ; to see what they ought to do in that dark hour of the Nation's peril. They met to act in the spirit and in harmony with the broad statesmanship, the noble-minded and great-hearted patriotism that had already been taken by their late presidential standard- bearer, Stephen A. Douglas. And so, the consideration given this great and momentous question at this meeting by these men was a serious one ; it was discussed soberly and solemnly, for all realized that the decision to be made by them was bound to affect not only the men of the town as a whole, but no one could tell or foresee how vitally it might affect each one as an individual. And so, the question in all its phases was thoroughly gone into, and when all who chose to speak had spoken, on motion it was voted " That Ferdinand L. Blake be and is hereby authorized and instructed to go to Concord to confer with Governor Berry to ad- vise him that the. voters, in the town of Kensington FERDINAND L. BLAKE RECRUITING OFFICER HAROLD F. BLAKE. 17 in meeting assembled had voted unanimously to do all they could to help preserve and maintain the Union, and that it was the sense of the meeting that the said Blake should be appointed a recruiting offi- cer to enlist such men for the war as might be avail- able." This motion was also carried unanimously, no doubt largely because Mr. Blake had, as we have seen, served under General Franklin Pierce through- out the Mexican War, and, therefore, presumably knew something about real war. But I think there were other reasons why he was thought to be the best man to handle the matter. He was, and always had been, one of the leading democrats; had been postmaster under two presidents ; was known of all men to be eminently fair and just; was respected alike by both political friends and opponents ; a man of wide reading, and in the prime of life. With these credentials Mr. Blake went to Concord to see the governor, and who, we may be sure, was glad to welcome him, once he was advised of the object of his visit. Hence, it followed that as soon as the official wheels could be made to turn the commission was made out and signed by the governor, and Mr. Blake returned to Kensington, a recruiting officer, the first, so far as the writer has knowledge, ap- pointed in the county. Our recruiting officer at once called a public meet- ing. At this meeting a large number of men of military age, belonging to both parties, attended, and many enlisted the first afternoon and evening, more the second day, and still more the third day. The total number of enlistments exceeded their most san- 18 RE-TOLD TALES OF WAR TIMES. guine expectations, and I repeat that there were no party men at these meetings; all were Union men and patriots. Yes, as Douglas felt honored in the holding of Lincoln's hat while he took the oath of office and later delivered his first inaugural address, so the Kensington followers of Douglas stood ready and willing to help hold up the hands of the presi- dent in his efforts to maintain the Union. I have mentioned elsewhere several times that Kensington was always foremost in Leadership in the towns of Rockingham County, and so, in this matter of the enlistment of men at the time of the Civil War we see the same spirit of leadership manifested. NOTE While I am drawing almost entirely from memory (being hundreds of miles distant from any possible data) in prepar- ing this reminiscent story, I wish to record this fact : Kensington sent the largest percentage of native soldiers to the war per capita of population of any town in the State. I have no records, and I be- lieve that there are none available to substantiate this statement, but I heard it many times stated during the years immediately following the close of the war by careful-speaking men, men who had strong grounds for believing to be true the statements they made, and which I have put down as facts. As our own men enlisted in large numbers so they came from other towns in large numbers to enlist: Foggs, Chases, Dows, and others from Seabrook ; Goves, Prescotts, and Pevears from Hampton Falls; Dana Webster, James Gray, Amos Batchelder, the three Hale boys, John, Charles and Kinsley, two Tappans, two Goodrichs, a Swett, a Carter, a Harden, a Tilton, a Blaisdell, and others from East Kingston ; the George brothers, and others from Kingston ; and they came from Hampton, South Hampton, Brentwood, Newton, Hampton Falls, Sea- brook, and other towns nearby, and there were quite a number who came from Exeter. HAROLD F. BLAKE. 19 Speaking of Exeter : There came a man from that town, not to enlist but to secure, for his company, the Kensington men then being enlisted. In this he was successful, as he readily secured the hearty co-oper- ation of our recruiting officer. I can see that young man, in my mind's eye, as he looked the first day he came to our town young, probably between twenty- two and twenty-four, a little above medium height, strikingly handsome and distinguished looking, cor- rectly and spotlessly dressed (even wearing gloves), quick of speech and very active in his movements. Even to the casual observer, though he were a boy, one could see that he was destined to succeed, whether in military or civil life, it mattered not. And so it proved, for to a man of his unbounded en- thusiasm and great mental and physical activities, once he entered into and became a part of the mili- tary service, promotion was sure to follow, and rapidly, which was the case. Yes, very early in the war he was made a commissioned officer, receiv- ing his commission for distinguished service. And so prophecy proved true, for this young man for more than fifty years, not only in the army and its circles, but in political circles in his home and in the community at large, town, county and state, has been active in the affairs of men, known and hon- ored everywhere as Captain George N. Julian of Exeter. Unless my mother and Weare Nudd Shaw re- member, it is probable that Captain Julian and my- self are the only two living, who remember that he came to Kensington in the early summer of 1862 20 RE-TOLD TALES OF WAR TIMES. and there in our little old townhouse secured, as I have said, several of our young men for his com- pany, men who served under and fought with him for three years that the Nation might live, not half free and half bondmen, but all free under the law. If these lines shall come to the notice of Captain Julian I am sure that he will confirm the facts as to his coming to Kensington for purposes as I have set them down. And the writer hopes that in re- calling the days of fife and drum and the young soldier enthusiasm these lines may bring back to him pleasant memories of the days when, as a young man, all was sunshine and roses for him to enjoy, and that in the retrospect he may find a source of real enjoy- ment to-day. But to resume the story of the work of the re- cruiting officer: Mr. Blake enlisted in all 165 men, and as all of the names of the Kensington men who enlisted that can now be recalled number but seventy-two we see that ninety-three men must have come from ad- joining towns for enlistment. The complete roster of our men and boys who were in the war of 1861-5 is as follows : Austin, Benjamin F. Blake, George Austin, Edward P. Blake, Henry T. Austin, James S. Blake, William F. Austin, Joseph N. Brown, Addison R. Baston, George A. Brown, Amos Batchelder, Albert A. Brown, George H. Batchelder, Charles E. Brown, Ira E. Blake, Ferdinand L. Brown, James, W. W. HAROLD F. BLAKE. 21 Brown, John Brown, Stephen Henry Brown, Stephen Hoyt Bunker, Thomas R. Chase, Silas Chase, Warren H. Cilley, George R. Collins, John E. Crosby, Henry Currier, John A. Davis, James M. Dresser, Moses D. Durgin, Daniel E. Eastman, Rufus Eaton, Frank Eaton, John L. Fellows, Edward E. George, Joseph O. Gove, Andrew J. Gove, Charles E. Gove, Lewis E. Green, John P. M. Hilliard, J. Leroy Hilliard, John T. Hull. John Lamprey, Samuel Leavett, Jeremiah K. Mallon, James Morrison, Frank Peacock, Hyla D. Ramsdell, George E. Rowe, Benjamin F. Rowe, Charles Rowe, George Porter Rowe, Jonathan B. Rowell, Amos Rowell, Edward M. Sanborn, Harvey D. Shaw, John H. Shaw, Weare Nudd Smith, David C. Spaulding, Rufus Sullivan, Dennis Tibbetts, Franklin Tibbetts, George Tibbetts, Jonathan Tibbetts, Warren E. V. Tilton, Franklin Hodgdon, Capt. C. Warren Wadleigh, Frank Hodgdon, John V. Wadleigh, Frank L. Hodgdon, William H. Wadleigh, George A/ P. Hull, Charles E. Walton, William H. To the foregoing list of seventy-two of our towns- men who voluntarily enlisted we should add another, a list of the men who voluntarily sent substitutes and who paid a bounty of $300.00 to $400.00 to the men they sent. While we have no record of the names 22 RE-TOLD TALES OF WAR TIMES. of the men they sent we do have the names of those who sent them ; they are as follows : George W. Green, Daniel E. Palmer, Josiah Deane Prescott, Theodore K. Mace, Benjamin George Moulton, Clin- ton Gove, Warren P. Lamprey, VVeare Nudd Shaw, Thomas C. Shaw, Joseph N. Healey, Charles E. Tuck, John Calvin French, Jeremiah Dow, Benjamin F. Levering, Jeremiah Milliard, and Cyrus O. Brown, sixteen in all. Note that Weare Nudd Shaw not only went himself, but sent and paid another man to go. In addition to the seventy-two of our men who volunteered and the fifteen men who sent substitutes, the town itself hired five out-of-town men to go, paying a bounty of $300.00 to each. The names of these five men were: John Adams, John Ford, John Wechesel, William Brown, and John Stone. It is a little singular, but these five (probably fictitious) named men are the only names of men that are officially on the records of the town as having been in the War of the Rebellion. We may also add the names of three other Kensington men, who had but recently left town, that enlisted elsewhere, and who made splendid soldiers, namely: Jackson Shaw, Frank T. Milliard, and Will- iam Nudd. A summary of the above shows that Kensington in this war furnished : Native and resident volunteers 72 Native nonresidents 3 Voluntarily supplied nonresident " sub- stitutes " 16 HAROLD F. BLAKE. 23 Nonresidents hired and paid for by the town 5 A total of 96 A most remarkable showing, and one that justifies Kensington's claim for her devotion to the cause of patriotism in the dark days of the Civil War. As a matter of information the writer will say that, with a view of preparing an accurate official list of the Kensington men who went to the war of 1861-5, he wrote some sixteen years ago to the adjutant- general at Concord to get such information as would enable him to prepare an officially correct record of such enlistments, to get the full name of each, his age at time of enlistment, and the regiment or service that he went into ; but was not only disappointed but greatly surprised to learn from that official (see letter below) that up to and including the Civil War period no such records were kept by the State. But, whether our own, or other towns of the State, have kept records that show who of their own citizens en- listed, what regiments they joined, or in what ca- pacity they served their country, I do not know; but, so far as I knew or have been able to ascertain, no accurate or comprehensive records were ever kept, and, therefore, the above list, which I have prepared with the help of a few (alas ! all too few) veterans, is as nearly correct and complete as is likely ever to be made. And thus, as this is correct, or essentially so, we can see the names of the Ken- sington men who made up our town's honor roll, the men who, in their day and generation, did their full endeavor to measure up to what President Lincoln asked the men of the North to do. 24 RE-TOLD TALES OF WAR TIMES. Yes, true it is that Kensington had every reason then, and it has every reason now, and will, for all time, have reason to be proud of its citizen-soldiers, the men who fought at Bull Run, Chancellorsville, Chattanooga, Franklin, Lookout Mountain, Gettys- burg ; at Petersburg ; down through the Wilderness ; marched with Sherman from Atlanta to the sea; and on scores of other battlefields, under McClellan, Hancock, Hooker, Meade, Burnside, Sickles, Custer, Logan ; and with Farragut on the seas ; under Col. E. E. Cross of Manchester, one of New Hamp- shire's most famous fighting commanders; others fought under Exeter's brave old fighter, General Gilman Marston ; and they fought with Sheridan, Sherman, and Grant unto the end at Richmond and Appomattox. And true it was that many of our boys were, at different times, under all of these great leaders. Some were in Libby Prison ; some were at Andersonville ; some never came home, but were buried where they fell ; some were laid to rest in the little cemeteries near the hospitals ; others came home, but were, many of them, physical wrecks while they lived, and when they passed over and joined the greater army of their comrades on the other side, they received, and will always receive, the homage of a grateful people for the sacrifices they made for duty well and faithfully done. State of New Hampshire, Adjutant-General's Office. Harold F. Blake, Concord, Aug. 9th, 1900. Haverhill, Mass. Dear Sir: Your letter of Aug. 6th, is received. The records of enlist- ments during the Civil War were kept in such shape that it is not possible to comply with your request for the names of the men en- HAROLD F. BLAKE. 25 listed by your father, neither is it possible to give a complete list of men from Kensington, the records of enlistments from to^wns not being kept at all in the early part of the war. I should be very glad to furnish you with the information you de- sire if in my power, and regret that it is not. Very respectfully, A. D. AYLING, Adjutant-General. Before taking leave of our dearly beloved and effi- cient recruiting officer, it may with truth and propri- ety be said that he was considered by the State of- ficials to have been one of the best who served the State in such capacity during the entire war. He was offered a Captain's commission when he had en- listed 75 men and a Major's Commission when he had enlisted 125 men, but he declined both, saying that he enlisted to go to war as an equal of the others, and he would not allow preferment to come to him through his services as a recruiting officer, though the offer came to him by the unanimous endorsement of his fellow townsman. Such action on the part of our recruiting officer gives a true pen-picture of the sterling qualities of the mind and heart of the man, Ferdinand L. Blake. However, as a matter of record, the Governor did prevail upon Mr. Blake to remain in the State some ten months after his regiment (the First New Eng- land Cavalry, New Hampshire and Rhode Island combining to make one regiment) went South, to continue his work as recruiting officer, which he did to the satisfaction of his superiors and to the advan- tage of the State. Yes, my dear reader, it was the valor of the young men of 1861-5 the farmer, the shoemaker, the hat- ter, the blacksmith, the carpenter, the chainmaker, 26 RE-TOLD TALES OF WAR TIMES. the millwight, the miller, the wagon-maker, the man- ufacturer, the merchant, the banker, the doctor, the lawyer, the preacher, the yeoman and the gentleman that were merged into the one melting-pot, from out of which came the strong and valiant volunteer soldier. And it is over the mortal remains of tens of thousands of such as these that there waves the little red, white and blue flag, which represents to- day our whole and undivided country, made so by the heroism and self-sacrifice of all the people of the North, not as republicans or as democrats, but as patriots as worthy sons of patriotic sires. And we must not forget to add that all this, and even more, can be said of the self-denial and sacrifices made by the mother, wife, and the children, who watched and waited by the home fireside with anx- ious minds and weary hearts for the letter or news from their loved ones in the far away Southland, fighting, or maybe dying for their beloved country, that it might remain what the great Webster said it should be: A land of " Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and inseparable." Aye, gloriously did Kensington do its share* more than its share, towards the preservation of the unity of the Republic, of our dearly beloved country, the country founded and established by Washington, Franklin, Jefferson, Patrick Henry, Sam and John Adams, Hancock, Hamilton, Livingston, Charles Carroll of Carollton, and our own Josiah Bartlett; and all made possible by the valor of the brave Con- tinentals in the hundred battles of the Revolution. And so Time wrought and Appomattox became possible because of the loyalty of more than two HAROLD F. BLAKE. 27 million men of the North men like our own kith and kin in Kensington, men who did their share as God gave them the light to see and the strength to work, to fight, to endure to the end, as Lincoln said : " That this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, and for the people shall not perish from the earth." Truly, did the passing of Lincoln seal the compact of an inseparable union between the North and the South between the " blue and the grey" forever. THE OLD VETERAN BY ASA FREDERICK HOWE, Chaplain Everett Peabody Post, 108, G. A. R., Dep't. of Man., Georgetown, Mass. A veteran has passed on, and the flag is at half-mast, On the post's headquarters at the Grand Army hall, From militant to triumphant he is " mustered " at last And goes forth in response to the commander's last call. One by one they depart, both the blue and the grey, From the north, from the south, from the east and the west, They go silently away as the hours leave the day, They go down the horizon, as the sun sinks to rest. They met on the field of carnage and death, Each brave and " worthy of the other's steel," Year after year they fought their best. They fought to the finish "for woe or for weal." They are brothers now, and were brothers then, But estranged by issues that "tried men's souls," Our ship of state was a slave-holding pen, The blue bravely sifted the dross from the gold. 28 RE-TOLD TALES OF WAR TIMES. The work was well done, and the dross was cast out The union was saved and bondmen made free, Our ship of state took a tack about, And now grandly sails on a peaceful sea, The blue and the grey now march on together. Shoulder to shoulder, all facing one way, " One country and one flag " is their slogan forever, And thus they will march to the musterout day. Their steps are growing slow, their years will be few, Let us honor the blue for what they did, Let us honor the grey for donning the blue, Let us march with the living and honor the dead. Let us pay our tribute with the flowers of spring, That have awakened to life from under the snow, Let us join with all nature and devoutly sing, " Praise God from whom all blessings flow." VI THE two following letters appeared in the Exeter (N. H.) News-Letter, and I will, though with some diffidence, include them with the other war-time reminiscences. Though they may be in a large measure my own boyhood experiences I feel that I shall not offend good taste by doing so, for the reason that to those for whom these tales are in- tended the reading of them may not be wholly un- interesting. Washington Reminiscences of Fifty Years Ago Montreal, P. Q., April 15, 1915. Editor Exeter News-Letter : Had I been keeping a diary fifty years ago to-day, and had set down in detail the names of the charac- ters herein named ; whence they came ; what they were doing, and why; what part each was playing in the little drama being enacted, would show, if HAROLD F. BLAKE. 29 truly set down, the place to have been Columbia College Hospital in the city of Washington, D. C. As affecting this record, the principal characters were Ferdinand L. Blake, John L. Eaton and his wife, Lois (Badger) Eaton, and myself, a lad of about ten years of age, and these four were all from Kensington. The two men were soldiers. My father, serving as "ward master" in the hospital, occupied a com- fortable white-washed room placed at the end of a long one-story building. In this room he lived and transacted his official business. At the other end of the same building two beautiful grey saddle-horses were kept and used officially by Major Crosby (of Laconia, N. H.), who was, at that time, commandant of the hospital, and by his orderly, John Eaton, I have referred to. Mr. Eaton and his wife occupied together a tent of ample dimensions, which stood within a dozen feet or so from the above-mentioned building. For some months prior to the period of which I am writing I had been in Washington with my father, and was some six months, or more, of my stay there a private messenger for the Western Union Telegraph company. Of this I will speak later. The daily routine was: At eight o'clock each morning Orderly Eaton mounted the major's horse, and I his, and we rode to the major's official resi- dence in the city, some three miles distant. The major coming down the steps to the minute would mount his own horse and, his orderly taking the one I had ridden, they would return to the hospital, each 30 RE-TOLD TALES OF WAR TIMES. to do his work for the day as I did mine. And thus did matters go on with me for several months immediately preceding the first of April, 1865. All the world knows that the month of April of that year was, is, and always will be, one of great historical interest to the American people, for it was in that month that great events took place, events that shaped our destinies for all time. The last great struggles of the four years' war were taking place ; Petersburg had fallen, Richmond was doomed, President Davis had fled, General Sherman had reached the sea, and yet on the ninth day of April the world was startled by the suddenness of the news that General Lee (the man of chivalry) had, at Appomattox, on that day surrendered the army of northern Virginia to General Grant (the magnani- mous). A few days later and General Joseph E. Johnston (another idol of the South), surrendered to General Sherman, the man of indomitable will and the idol of his soldiers. And so the people were rejoicing everywhere throughout the North, but nowhere was there such great display of flags and bunting as at Washington. And so as Orderly Eaton and I rode down 14th street to the city, morning after morning, full}' en- joying the spring-like, balmy air always to be found in Washington at this season of the year, we saw more and more and yet more flags and bunting. Hovels and huts of the negroes, homes of the well- to-do, and the beautiful residences of the rich were all decorated. Everywhere these evidences of the people's rejoicing could be seen. I remember es- HAROLD F. BLAKE. 31 pecially how that the White House and the great Treasury building were, when finished, completely covered with our National colors of red, white and blue. And thus matters stood in Washington on the evening of April 14, 1865. On arrival home from my work that night my father said : " Well, my boy, John says that you and I are to go with him to Ford's theatre to-night to see ' Our American Cousin,' " which was being played by the elder Sothern, and Laura Keene. Mr. Eaton being detained by the major later than usual, we did not get started until late, and the old rattletrap street cars then running on 14th street, hauled by cranky mules, seemed to move slower than ever, and so it was nearly nine o'clock when we arrived at the theatre. Upon enquiring for tickets we were told that all seats were sold, but we could find standing room. My father said that he did not feel well enough to stand all the evening and would rather go across the street to Grover's theatre, where they were playing " Moll Pitcher." And, so, we went to Grover's theatre. I was pleased at this (we did not know that the president was at Ford's), because my grandmother, when a young woman, knew " Moll Pitcher " well, and she had told me many a story about this supposedly fortune-teller, but who was really the shrewd and afterwards famous " spy of the Revolution," who gave valuable information con- cerning the action of the Tories and the movements of the British to Washington, when he was at Dor- chester Heights. And thus it was that these two men and the boy from Kensington so narrowly missed witnessing the awful tragedy enacted that 32 RE-TOLD TALES OF WAR TIMES. night within fifty yards of the place where they were, and where Sothern, as Lord Dundreary, brought light and sunshine to a worn and wearied heart why they did not see John Wilkes Booth limp across the stage after his cowardly shooting of President Lin- coln. Our play must have ended much earlier than at Ford's, as we heard nothing about the killing of the president that night. It was not until next morning when Orderly Eaton and 1 riding to the city, as was our custom, saw flags being lowered to half-mast, bunting being removed from both private and pub- lic buildings, and all the evidences of bright colors of the people's rejoicing being replaced with crepe. The appalling story of the night before was being told in voices subdued and broken. Few dry eyes were seen that day. I could relate pages of recollections of the strik- ing events that followed rapidly one after the other as the days came swiftly on. How anxious the people were concerning Seward, the great Secretary of State, whose life had been attempted ; of the strenuous steps that were immediately taken to ap- prehend Booth and the other conspirators ; how they traced the steps of Booth to the barn in Virginia, and how Boston Corbett, seeing Booth through a crack, shot him dead ; of the capture of Harrold and the other conspirators, and of their swift trial and execution ; of the almost universal disapproval of the hanging of Mrs. Surratt. All these I could tell, and much more, in detail. You may allow me space to tell further of how I saw the funeral car that bore the flag-draped casket HAROLD F. BLAKE. 33 of the martyr president down past the Treasury building and along Pennsylvania Avenue ; of the tens of thousands of whites and blacks, exalted and humble, standing uncovered, bowed and broken with grief. And how, but a few short weeks thereafter, I saw what has ever since been known as the " grand review" of our armies of nearly a million of men, tried and true veterans, who had served under their idolized leaders, Grant, Sherman, Sheridan, Han- cock, Logan, and many another noble leader and commander of men ; of how the army under Gen- eral Grant, having only to come up from Richmond and Petersburg, had plenty of time to brush up their arms and accoutrements, to " spruce up " as for dress parade; and, therefore, individually and as a whole body they appeared clean and fresh. These men were the vanguard of the full three days' marching. But of Sherman's men a different tale is told. These barely had time to reach Washington from Savannah to take part in this, the last great review of the Union armies before the final mustering out of the service of the largest body of men in the world's history of war up to that period, and, there-- fore, these men of Sherman's army came into line of march just as they had marched through Georgia (these " bummers " of Sherman, as they were called), and we saw the soldier just as he was at the front. Yes, we saw the soldier as he was, these soldiers who had seen and made war terrible as their great commander declared it to be, " hell " these men were the ideal of the fighting soldier as they marched in their old, worn, dirty and tattered uniforms, and many there were without uniforms. 34 RE-TOLD TALES OF WAR TIMES. Parenthetically it can be said (and I remember it well), that President Johnson and some of his ad- visors had had a sharp controversy with General Sherman the day before the parade because he re- fused to order his men to " spruce up " for the great event, Sherman saying that his men had had enough of the iron rules of war ; let the day be a holiday for them as well as for the civilian ; and as all this was reported in the papers the people liked Sherman all the better for it, and they showed it when he came riding along with his staff at the head of his men. And that it might be the more realistic his men brought with them, and had in the parade, pigs, sheep, cows, goats, mules, turkeys, coons, chickens, , and " possums," to show how they lived when on their march to the sea. But what cheers greeted them on the way ! Words of mine are inadequate to express the emotions, the pentup feelings of the people in Washington that day. On the third day General Sheridan, at the head of his great army of cavalry, passed up the Avenue and over the same route in review as had the infantry and artillery the two preceding days and it was over. All this I saw from the doors and windows of the Western Union Telegraph company building, which stood then directly opposite the main entrance to the Treasury building, and, as I remember, next door to the great banking house of Jay Cooke & Co., which had done so much to help our govern- ment in its darkest days of financial stress. But I have written enough, far too much possibly. Some time I will set down and send you an account HAROLD F. BLAKE. 35 of my experiences as a special messenger of the telegraph company I have mentioned, and how as such I only delivered messages, urgent and private, to the White House, often placing the message into President Lincoln's own hands; and a few urgent or confidential messages I had to deliver to the heads of the State, Treasury, War, Navy, and Adjutant-Gen- eral's departments. In the meanwhile, I hope that these rambling rem- iniscences of the long ago will come to the eyes of Mrs. Lois Eaton, who, in the days of which I write, lived with her soldier-husband in the tent close by the low one-story white-washed building, occupied by the man and boy, their friends from the dear home town of Kensington, the dearest and prettiest town of any in the old Granite State. If these lines shall come to the notice of Mrs. Eaton I am sure that she will recall the facts as here set down, and I hope that the recollections thus awakened will bring to the then young wife, the wife and friend whose merry and contagious laughter was heard through the thin walls of the tent and enjoyed not only by the boy, but by all who listened may these recollec- tions be to her, though it were fifty years since, not wholly an unmixed pleasure. HAROLD F. BLAKE. VII Recollections and Experiences of a Telegraph Messenger Fifty Years Ago Montreal, P. Q., April 26, 1915. Editor Exeter News-Letter: Having inadvertently dated my "reminiscent" 36 RE-TOLD TALES OF WAR TIMES. letter April 15 instead of the 14th, my dates were put one day out of plumb, otherwise the story printed in issue of April 23 was correct In that letter I mentioned the fact of my being employed as a private messenger for the Western Union Telegraph company (it may have been called the American Telegraph company), at Washington in 1864-5. How it came to pass that I was available and ready to be so employed may be of interest not only to the few who remember, but to the general reader, as the story shows how incidents of trifling impor- tance in themselves, apparently, oftentimes lead to strange and even important conclusions to the indi- t vidual, though that individual may be of utter in- significance to the world about him. The story, as a story, may be spoiled in the tell- ing, but the facts, both primary and incidental, can be set down as follows : My father was home on a soldier's furlough in late September, 1864. Early in October he went back to Washington and took me with him ; Amos Rowell, another Kensington soldier, arranged to go back to Washington with us. He was a skilled musician, and played in the band at the Soldiers' Home then located on 7th street. (This was Presi- dent Lincoln's summer residence.) Arriving in Boston we went to a hotel and restau- rant located on Friend street, and kept by Moses Pearson, to get lunch. It was a famous eating place at that time and for many years afterwards. Pearson himself was a noted character, a shrewd and typical Yankee, if ever there was one; he even wore the HAROLD F. BLAKE. 37 Uncle Sam chin whiskers. Concerning that lunch I recall one incident particularly. I thought it mighty funny that Pearson should know both my father and Mr. Rowell so well, and was more astonished, as I saw from my seat at the table, that he knew scores of other people, who came in after we sat down, just as intimately, apparently, as he appeared to know the two men from Kensington. Many years afterwards, however, I learned that Pearson possessed, to an unusual degree, the faculty of appearing to know personally every person who entered his establishment, and this art enabled him to extend to each new arrival what appeared to be a sincere personal welcome. Of all the mine hosts I have ever seen he best exemplified the art of " wel- coming the coming and speeding the parting guest." Parenthetically I may say that Mr. Parker, the founder of the Parker House, Boston, also possessed this seventh sense in large degree. It is said of him that, standing at the entrance to his dining room, he would welcome his guests as though it was his pri- vate house and as though each one was a friend of his family. Capitalizing his art, he became a million- aire landlord. He used to say that if he could per- sonally make his guests satisfied with what they had had in the dining room he need give no thought to the barroom, as what was dispensed there would speak for itself. But let us get back to the story of the journey. Arriving in New York the next day, we went to the Astor House, corner Broadway and Vesey streets. We stopped there that night, and in the evening went to Barnum's museum, where we saw, 38 RE-TOLD TALES OF WAR TIMES. among other things, the " Woolly Horse, " " Tom Thumb," and the "Wild Men of Borneo." The next day, arriving in Philadelphia, we had to change into cars that were filled to suffocation with all sorts of people, soldiers, officers and privates, and no doubt there were among them " skedaddlers," and " bounty-jumpers," and not a few women and children. It was at this point that my own personal adven- tures began. I remember distinctly that I occupied the seat that run lengthwise of the car behind the door, and that piled up around me were bags, bundles and packages belonging to the travelers from Ken- sington. Arriving at Baltimore, the cars were unshackled, and each separate car was hauled through the main streets by a pair of mules. It seems that in order to get seats my traveling companions had gone back into another car, and that when the train was made up again there were so many passengers en route for Washington that the train was made up and run in two sections, mine some miles ahead of that which held my home folk ; but of this I knew nothing un- til we had nearly reached Washington. Even with the doubling up of train capacity the aisles of the car were completely filled with people standing. Having still retained my seat near the door, and though still surrounded with heaps of packages, one of which, I remember, contained sev- eral of mother's mince pies (for John and Lois Eaton), I was very comfortable personally, but I could see that there were many very weary and tired ; one gentleman appearing especially so, I offered him HAROLD F. BLAKE. 39 my seat, and he, with evident gratitude, accepted, and I stood up. As we neared Washington I became alarmed con- cerning my companions, and undoubtedly my face showed it. I went through the train, but did not find them. It came on dark and the night was rainy. Both added to my distress, which was not strange, being but a lad, with a horseload of bundles to look after and going to an army post without password or countersign, or even money to get on with. The whole thing was appalling. Here it was that the " bread I had cast upon the waters" came back pretty quick, for the man I had obliged with a seat came to my assistance. He took charge of me and my traps, loaded me onto a Penn- sylvania Avenue car, paid my fare, instructed the conductor to put me in charge of the conductor on the 14th street car, which, he said would take me right to the entrance gate to Columbia College Hos- pital, our destination. He especially instructed him to have that conductor tell the corporal of the guard to let me into the guardhouse and thus be able to tell my story, which all sounded pretty formidable to me. Before leaving me, this kindly gentleman gave me his card, and told me to call and see him after I had seen the sights of Washington, which I prom- ised to do. Before I had half finished my story in the guardhouse by the gate, my father arrived, and I suspect that two long breaths were taken. On the morrow, looking at the gentleman's card, I discov- ered that his name was Blatchford and that he be- longer 1 in Manchester, N. H., and was the general 40 RE-TOLD TALES OF WAR TIMES. manager of the Western Union Telegraph company at Washington. At the end of the first week I had seen the sights of the city, and so called on my friend in need, Mr. Blatchford, and he appeared very glad to see me. He told me that he had a place for me, if I would accept it, to serve as a special messenger to deliver messages to President Lincoln, and to the several members of his cabinet, and to the adjutant- general's office, and he would give me $50.00 a month. I went to work the next day. Mr. Blatchford, the first thing in the morning, gave me a note with instructions to go to the White House, where I went, and was admitted to the pres- ence of President Lincoln. After reading the note from Mr. Blatchford, which told him about the boy from New Hampshire, Mr. Lincoln wrote on a small piece of paper these words : " Admit the Bearer. " A. Lincoln." Handing it to me, he said that some times it was hard work to get at him, but with this card I could reach him at any time. However, after the first week I had become so well known to the door- keepers and secretaries that I had no further use for the pass and laid it aside. " Pity 't is, 't is true," but in the hurly-burly of the times it was laid aside and lost. A precious piece of paper to own now. It was therf, and it has remained in my memory since, a most singular coincidence that the first per- son I met on my first messenger trip to the White House, was a young man .by the name of Chase, who formerly lived in Kensington and went to school HAROLD F. BLAKE. 41 there. Though older than I, he remembered me, and he was of great help in making things easy for me at first. As to Chase having lived in our town I only re- member, and this but indistinctly, that he lived with the Winckly's, who were next-door neighbors to Captain Henry Brown. It may be that Mr. James W. W. Brown, his son, will be able to recall the full name of the young fellow, and how it was that he should live in Kensington at all, for I do not remem- ber of his having relatives there. I did learn later, however, that he was a relative of Salmon P. Chase (afterwards Chief Justice of the Supreme Court), which probably accounts for his appointment to a position in the White House. 1 There was a peculiar circumstance in regard to the messages I delivered ; most of them came into the office in cypher and had to be translated, or, as they have it these days, de-coded, before delivery to those I served. This probably accounts for the messages not being sent directly in to the government offices. As I have now related the several incidents that led up to my employment as special messenger, per- haps I should not longer continue the story, and yet I will venture to add a few more lines to say that in serving as a messenger as I did, I went to the White House often several times a day, and therefore saw President Lincoln many, many times during the several months I worked for Mr. Blatchford, and his l l have learned, since writing the above, that his name was Jacob, that he was called " Jakey," and that he was a distant relative of Captain Henry Brown, that he lived with him two years and went to our district school during that time. 42 RE-TOLD TALES OF WAR TIMES. features and figure are indelibly fixed in my memory for all time that I shall have memory. What became of Mr. Blatchford, I am sorry to say that I don't know. So far as my story touches the one great character mentioned in it, the final drop of the curtain was near at hand. I recall the last time I saw Mr. Lin- coln alive. It was several days after the surrender of General Lee, which meant the immediate down- fall of the Southern Confederacy; probably it was on the night of the 12th or 13th of April, when vast numbers of people gathered inside of the gates in front of the White House ; and they were there to man- ifest their joy and happiness over the ending of the long years of war and suffering that the people of the North and of the South had endured both peoples for conscience sake and they give vent to their feelings by cheering the president; and such cheering ! cheers such as only Americans can give ; and 'midst the cheers there was the cry and call for the president, and with the constantly increasing numbers so the volume of sound of voice of his people increased more and more and would not be stilled until the president appeared at the window over the portico, and the people the enthusiastic thousands who saw him cried, " speech ! speech ! " but he made none. He stood in the window several minutes and bowed and smiled, and it was such a pleasant smile, and then he retired ; but the cheers being renewed, and they were so hearty and evidently so sincere, he came to the window again and bowed several times, and the second time he came he led a little boy with him ; then standing there what seemed HAROLD F. BLAKE. 43 a long time one could see that he was greatly af- fected by the scene before him, as if the trials through which he and all the people, North and South, had passed during the years of his presidency haunted him. Then bowing, and still bowing he passed from our view, and that was the last time I saw Abraham Lincoln. In closing, let me say that in after years I met other soldiers from Kensington, East Kingston, Kingston, Hampton Falls, Seabrook, and other towns adjacent, who told me that they were there and were a part of the great crowd who gathered in front of the White House that night fifty years ago to pay homage and to show their love for " Old Abe," the man known in history as being " of the people, for the people and by the people," and will ever so re- main Abraham Lincoln. Personally I recall the names of but six that were there as participants in the demonstration as above related and they were all from Kensington, four of them soldiers : Ferdinand L. Blake, John V. Hodg- don, Amos Rowell, and John Eaton. Accompany- ing these were Mr. Eaton's wife, Mrs. Lois Eaton, and the then boy, HAROLD F. BLAKE. VIII The Two Soldiers and the One Weak Ankle THE two stories of this chapter tell of what befell two Kensington men who enlisted in 1862 to help Uncle Sam keep the Union intact as one nation, as the founders intended it should be. 44 RE-TOLD TALES OF WAR TIMES. As both men passed to the great beyond many years ago, and as neither left descendants to read the stories (though were any living they might well approve of them) I see nothing. in them to run counter to good taste by the telling of them in de- tail, as the facts warrant, and as several of the old veterans now living can vouch. I may say that the stories are more than stories, for, while they relate to two characters as individuals, they do more, they tell of the lax and horribly inadequate business methods and conditions prevail- ing in the military as well as the civil service of our country during and immediately succeeding the Civil War, conditions that worked cruel hardships upon thousands and tens of thousands of war-scarred, blood-poisoned, physically broken down, and in many cases prematurely old veterans. The stories concern Ira E. Brown and Jeremiah K. Leavett MR. BROWN was a native of Kensington, and all our people knew him from school-days. In person he was powerfully built, over six feet, three inches in height, well proportioned and in the prime of life, about forty, at the time of the incidents related. In the general description of the man's mental and physical makeup I may say that in my fairly wide reading of literature I have found but one char- acter with which to liken him, Eachen Maclan, a chief of one of the Highland clans of Scotland, as he is portrayed by Scott in his delightful novel, " The Fair Maid of Perth." HAROLD F. BLAKE. 45 The story of Eachen is said to be historically true. If any of my readers wishes to learn just what kind of a man Eachen was he should read the thirty- fourth chapter of the above named book, and he will see that such as E.achen never become national heroes. No, it isn't such as he that becomes the " Harry Smiths of the Wynd," the Farraguts " lashed to the mast," the Israel Putnams " in the den of wolves," or volunteer with the Hobsons, lead forlorn hopes with the General Picketts, wear the " Cross of the Legion of Honor " or the " Victoria Cross," or receive the "Thanks of Congress" for conspicuous valor, but they do frequently land first and foremost when it comes to the securing of large pensions, as Ira did. The story of Ira runs thus : To his associates, as boy and man, he was known to be lacking in both the mental and physical qualities that go to make up the Spartan hero. Hence it was that it took several weeks of hazing and raillery of his friends to even get him to visit the recruiting office in the townhouse during the summer of 1862. But he finally went, and there met with so much encouragement and enthusiastic solicitation, that he agreed then and there to enlist; and before his promise had time to cool or his courage to wane, they had his coat and vest off, and he was measured and weighed ; and, upon the signing of the papers, he was an enlisted man before he fully realized it. Yes, it was done so quickly that many a man like Sam Lamprey, Bill Hodgdon, Nute and Frank Austin, Weare Nudd and Jack Shaw, Jim Brown and others like them, fairly 46 RE-TOLD TALES OF WAR TIMES. chuckled over the almost shanghaing of Ira into the army. When the formalities were over the recruiting officer said in his quiet and gentle way : " Ira, don't forget yourself, and let your ankle get out of joint when you go to Concord to be examined." I won- der if any now living remember these words of caution of the recruiting officer so kindly meant. Whether any others now remember the incident, Ira remembered the injunction then, for he kept his ankle in place while in Concord and passed his ex- amination without any trouble, and later was mus- tered into the 14th New Hampshire Regiment. The joke of the ankle was this: From childhood Ira could throw it out of joint at will, and cause it to lay practically at a right angle fiat on the ground. However, in due time our hero, with his regiment, landed at the front, where he served faithfully though uneventfully nearly two years. Yes, all went well with him until one day, being detailed with a few others for scout duty, and he being somewhat advanced on the skirmish line, he was surprised at finding himself somewhat cut off from the others and in very close proximity to the enemy, as he could tell by the sharp crack of the enemy's rifles in the distance, and the more vividly so as he heard the whizzing of the bullet past his head. And so Ira, in seeking a safe place for individual effort, or refuge, which meant the hasty getting off of the firing line, had occasion to crawl through a Virginia " zigzag " rail fence. Whereupon, when about half way through, offering a good broad target to the enemy, a Johnny Reb sharpshooter, taking careful HAROLD F. BLAKE. 47 aim, put a bullet clean plump into the right side of the sitting down part of his anatomy. But, it being a long range shot, the force of the bullet was so spent that, while it did penetrate his trousers, it barely entered the flesh its own depth. In fact, so slight was the wound that a comrade coming up, seeing that Ira had not only got caught, but still hung in the fence, and wounded, probed for and removed the ball with his jackknife. Such being the true state of affairs with Ira, one would have thought that such a wound, while it might be a little troublesome to sit down with for a few days, would on the whole, and especially con- sidering his narrow escape, have been one to cause smiles rather than tears, merriment rather than sor- row, and that he would soon be again on the firing line. But no ! While the injury from the bullet from the Kentucky sharpshooter was to the naked eye of the layman, located at the center of the side of his posterior, the real effect of the shot was that his ankle became disjointed and lay flat on the ground, and the efforts of the most skilled of the army surgeons could not with splint or plaster strengthen either "nerve, bone or sinew "sufficiently to hold it in place. After many and repeated efforts had been made by the surgeons to " knit" the liga- ments without avail they diagnosed it to be a " help- less case," and so the doubly injured man was, by unanimous action of the board of surgeons, officers and chaplain of his regiment, honorably discharged forthwith. And to top the whole, his discharge papers explicitly set forth how that the injury of the ankle was a very serious one, caused by a bullet 48 RE-TOLD TALES OF WAR TIMES, wound received in action, that the wound was of a permanent character, and that he should be pensioned by the Government at once. Yes, all these things were solemnly set forth in Ira's discharge papers. And so it came to pass that our hero, with reason- able despatch, landed in the old home town with his ankle (officially) flat on the ground. In the eyes of the law Ira's was a clear case and deserving, because there were so many officers and men who knew of the shot at the rail fence, and of the immediate effect therefrom and thereof ; and, these things having been certified to by many officers and men in their report the evidence was conclusive, so Ira quickly obtained a very large pension to start with, and with scarce any medical examination what- ever. What was the need when he had the official certificate of his commanding officers, surgeons and chaplain that his was a permanent disability result- ing from a bullet wound received in action? And when Ira was examined for increase of pension, which was not overlooked, the examination was merely pro forma, as the ankle never failed to play its part as it had done at the rail fence, or, as when in his schooldays he would throw it out for fun. Speaking of increase of pension : I am doing no injury to the feelings of the living or to the good name of the dead when I say that while Ira received, as I have stated, a very large pension to start with, he was able to have it increased several times before he died. In commenting upon this particular case one could have said that while in the eyes of the law it was a HAROLD F. BLAKE. 49 very weak and useless ankle physically, to Ira it was a very strong one financially. Before taking leave of our old friend Ira, let it be said that though there were scarce half a dozen of the Kensington soldiers but what knew of the story of the oscillating ankle and of its easy -manipulation long before the war, no one of them but felt that Ira was lucky in getting the pension he did, for there were so many of them who, though more de- serving, were unable to get one, and so it was that instead of envying they all congratulated him. Now comes the strangest part of the whole story : While it may seem incredible, it is true that notwith- standing his large and ever increasing pension, Ira wrought at his trade of cordwainer (for as such he was enlisted) and did a full days work each day for many years, as in form and manner minutely set forth (or will be) in another story. IX Jeremiah K. Leavett THIS being a sort of companion story to the one told of Ira, and both true stories, we can see by comparing them that " Truth is strange, stranger than fiction," but we do not clearly understand why it is that the righteous man is so often forgotten, why the table of the one is amply supplied with bread and honey, whilst the other only receives the remnants from the table of the cottages along the wayside. That this is so, listen to the story of the real hero. First of all, let it be said that he was a genial and kindly man, and that being such, was familiarly known 50 RE-TOLD TALES OF WAR TIMES. by old and young everywhere as " Jerry," and so I will call him. Jerry was not a native of our town, but was, I think, born in Exeter. At any rate, his brother Nathaniel was a prominent man in that town, serving as sheriff for several years and as postmaster for two terms as I remember. Though memory, not being infallible, fools us all sometimes. Jerry was a widower, and had, at the time of my story, two daughters. As I recollect, he first made his appearance in our town in the early summer of 1861, coming there from Amesbury Mills, as it was called then, to help my grandfather, Captain Josiah T. Blake, through haying. When haying was fin- ished Jerry concluded to remain in town, and did so. Unlike his brother Nathaniel, who was an ardent republican, Jerry was a whole-hearted democrat, and so it was among the men belonging to that party that he found congenial spirits. And so it was, too, that when these, his closest friends, came forward to enlist, as we have seen they did, Jerry was amongst the very first to volunteer to fight for Uncle Sam. I may say here that at the time he first came to our town Jerry was in the prime of life, and physi- cally a perfect type and specimen of vigorous man- hood. A more particular description of him would show him to have been of medium height, rather thick set, and as quick on his feet as a cat. In disposition he was one of the pleasantest of men, everybody, chil- dren and all, liking him ; and, while given to con- viviality on such days as the Fourth of July, Thanks- giving Day with its turkey shoot, and Christmas, HAROLD F. BLAKE. 51 when everybody, as he expressed it, was supposed to feel " whop-de-doodle-de-dum," his every act was within the bounds of propriety, and he was always courteous and never forgot that he was a gentleman. And so Jerry went to the war with the rest. I do not recall what regiment he joined ' or how many battles he was in, but we do know that for nearly three years he was at the front, fought through several campaigns, and was in many engagements ; that he was transferred several times, and, in consequence, could scarce remember the names of his early officers and comrades. And yet, in whatever unit Jerry was assigned to he did his full duty as a man should, and well he deserved the full credit and praise he re- ceived from both superiors and equals for the part he played. Yes, he did deserve their praise, for there being no half-hearted blood in Jerry he fought or worked by day, and if need be, tended his sick and wounded comrades by night; and he kept this up for nearly three years, and never during all that time did he ask or receive leave of absence, or fur- lough, to go home to see his people. But, alas ! as the stoutest oak bends and breaks before the blast, so Jerry's stout heart and body broke down under the constant strain, and he was taken to the tent of the field hospital, a weary, worn and sick man. And thus it was that Jerry lay sick on his cot in the hospital in the far South for many weeks. Then, when recovery was despaired of he received his discharge from the service because of disability, and he came back to Kensington, not the same 1 Fourteenth N. H. Regiment. 52 RE-TOLD TALES OF WAR TIMES. Jerry that went away nearly three years before. No, for now he was like tens of thousands of others who came home from the war with germs of disease im- planted in their bodies, and from which none ever fully recovered ; and many, oh, so many ! survived but a few weeks, or months, or years, and then the last roll call and the last tap sounded for them. I can see Jerry now as we saw him on the day of his return, a bent, feeble, grey-whiskered old man in place of the clean-shaven and sturdy athlete who enlisted in our old townhouse, as we have seen so many others did, to serve three years in the armies of Uncle Sam, unless sooner discharged. And it came to pass that for weeks, and even months, after his return, Jerry was an invalid and re- ceived the care and attention he needed from his oldtime friends in Kensington ; and all who cared for him did so without price or obligation. And while in due time he partially recovered his former health it never came back to him so as to allow him to follow his trade as a hatter, or to perform other arduous labor, but he did light work here and there when he was able to work at all. It may be stated here as an historical fact that for the first few years immediately succeeding the war it was thought by many of the higher-minded and the more patriotic men that it was not quite the proper thing, even quite unpatriotic, to -make appli- cation for a pension. And as Jerry was by blood and breeding inclined to follow the course and trend of the highest ideals, he was loath to apply for one, though no one deserved it more, nor was there any HAROLD F. BLAKE. 53 one to whom the giving of it would have been more unanimously approved. However, the counsels of friends at last prevailed, and he applied for a pension. Being a physical wreck, and the cause of it known of all men, he and his friends thought it would be but a mere matter of form. But, alas ! he nor they little knew the diffi- culties that lay in the way, for in the early days the burden of proof was all put upon the applicant for pension, and worse still, under the then (1865 to 1875) Government policy the board of examining physicians were expected, practically instructed, to turn down every applicant possible. As I remember, the certificate of any commissioned officer, regardless of his personal character, was worth more in getting a pension than the certificate of scores of privates. But having been in and out .of several different units of the service Jerry could not find commissioned officers, or even privates enough to certify or even identify him. And so it was that he went, went, went, here, there, and everywhere, hoping to find those who could help him, but he found them not; and, it was only through the powerful influence of his brother Na- thaniel and General Marson and others that he, after nearly four years, was granted a pension of two dollars a month. By this time, he of the self-adjusting ankle think of the irony of it was getting twelve dollars a month. Eventually, however, Jerry got six dollars a month and with this amount he had to remain con- tent to the end of the chapter, which came all too soon to this gallant soldier, this man of high ideals, 54 RE-TOLD TALES OF WAR TIMES. this kindly gentleman and adopted son of Kensing- ton, who, by enlisting from there, helped to make up the immortal roll of the grand old town's contri- bution of men who fought in the Civil War Jerry Leavett. These two chapters, the companion stories of Ira and Jerry, could have been much shorter, and yet the readers have seen that the war experience, or history of the two men opens up for us a wide field for philosophical argument, for do they not show that circumstances, environment and conditions oftentimes lead men to act unfairly, unjustly even, towards their fellow men. To some, too much is^ given, to others, far more deserving it may be, too little ; and yet all may be done under the law. But I will leave speculation and discussion of these abstruse questions to others. To me has fallen the simple task of telling the story of Ira and Jerry, which I will now conclude without further comment than to say this : While Jerry fought and worked hard for nearly three years, and came home, as we have seen, an old, prematurely old, war-worn and broken down man, and that he never received a pension large enough to supply him with the bare necessities of life, Ira, notwithstanding his ability to perform a full day's work at his trade, received a very large one for a disability born with him (and not as a result of the episode at the rail fence) and, therefore, not because of his valor or part in the war. No, there is no way to explain such things unless we admit " That Divinity shapes our ends, rough hew them how we will." HAROLD F. BLAKE. 55 X Kensington's One Copperhead THERE was a kind of a queer character about Ken- sington in the late fifties and early sixties, but where he came from or where he went to I don't know. I do remember, however, the man very dis- tinctly, that he was short and thick, that he had a big, round and florid face and was phlegmatic in all things save one he hated a "Nigger" and all Abolitionists with unutterable hatred, and would lash himself into the wildest frenzy in talking about them. In his language, as I have said, he was the rankest, the most violent and rabid pro-slavery man of them all. In speech alone he was far worse than old J L of , whom the boys of Phillips- Exeter routed out of bed and made an excellent ex- ample of because of his pro-slavery utterances in 1863. But as the skunk and hedgehog are provided by nature with means of defence, and are therefore im- mune from attack by unarmed man, so this man may have been saved from himself by mode, manner, and the very violence of his speeches; and, especially it may be, by the extremely ludicrous manner and climax with which he ended every one he made, which, by the way, was always the same speech. While I will not undertake to give a full verbatim report of his oft-repeated speech, the manner of it, or all of the words ', I will say this: He would start in with a low, gentle voice to tell of Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, and a whole string of the Fathers of the Republic, their ancestors and de- scendants as well, all owning and trading in slaves, and how tens of thousands of them had been shang- 56 RE-TOLD TALES OF WAR TIMES. haied, or bought with New England rum, made in Newburyport and Medford, from the African chiefs and brought to America in the vessels owned by the d d pious Boston shipowners. Yes, brought to this country in the very same ships that had taken the cargoes of rum and bibles to Africa to exchange for the "Niggers" the poor devils, he for one wished that every blasted one of them were back in the jungles of Africa where they would be but for these pious gentry of Boston and Salem. But, hav- ing been landed here as they were, didn't old Cotton Mather own and even kill his slaves with hard work and for lack of food to eat? Certainly he did. Didn't old Governor Weare, the patriot of Hampton Falls, even in our Revolutionary days, own and work slaves. He did, and no one can deny it. Hasn't everybody that is anybody in history owned and worked slaves, eveii right down from Moses, Abra- ham, Isaac and Jacob and the rest? No one ques- tioned this right to own and trade in slaves until that Hat Beecher Stowe, with her Tom's Cabin lies and rubbish, and that cheap and worthless shoemaker, John Whittier, composed rhymes about Daniel Web- ster, telling about " Oh Ichabod " and " Tom Shep- ley," and the two or three women, Suse Anthony, Cad Stanton and Crete Mott put on breeches and commenced to rant about the " Nigger" being better than a white man ; and then to cap the climax they wanted to go to the polls, drink rum and vote with the men (ten chances to one that neither one of them could cook a mess of potatoes without burning the kettle as black as your hat). And then there was that HAROLD F. BLAKE. 57 crazy fool Greeley who printed the Tribune. And then he mentioned Bill Seward and old Thad Stevens and others as he went on. When he came to William Lloyd Garrison, Wen- dell Phillips, Charles Sumner, John P. Hale and Bill Chandler he commenced to use language that would not be fit to put down here. He called Garrison a cheap " tramp " printer who belonged in Newbury- port; of Wendell Phillips he said he had a lot of money, which had been made by his family by dis- tilling rum and which they, his ancestors, had bar- tered for the African slaves for the very ancestors of those he was now so much concerned about. Talking ! Why ! this man Phillips had nothing else to do except to talk! As for Charles Sumner well, all he could say about him was that he wished that the Honorable Preston C. Brooks had used a good deal heavier cane on him. But, it was when he came nearer home that his speech became more intense, wide and lurid in its vocabulary, as well as bitter in its invective. He said : Take that Frank Sanborn, of Hampton Falls; he had far better be on the marsh helping " Old Hopkins " dig ditches, or on the clam-flats helping Daniel Pevear dig clams, or stacking salt hay for somebody, instead of living down at Concord in the same town with that ignorant fool that printed the stuff called " The Bigelow Papers " and where the writer of it didn't spell half of the words right; and that man too, the same as Sanborn, made a lot of cheap talk about the " cussed " niggers and trying to make people believe that they were not only as good 58 RE-TOLD TALES OF WAR TIMES. but better than white men. Yes, he had far better be digging and shocking clams, had that man San- born. And yet it was only when the orator come to con- sider the Abolitionists in our town that he really got down to personalities. He said : Take the whole lot of Milliard's, Joe, Rufe, Bill and Frank; Charles and Hen Tuck, Abe Titcomb, Steve Green, John Adams Blake, Parse Tuck, Syke Wadleigh, Steve Brown and Tom Gadd, they, every cussed one of them should be taken to the center of Muddy Pond, and there with a 200-pound stone and rope with one end slipnoosed about their necks should be sunk to its bottomless depths. But it was now when he came to the one, the deepest dyed scoundrel of them all, "Old Gard Clifford " ah ! then ! was the voice, words and speech that came from his lips awful in their intensity. Ah, yes, but it was right here that the singular part of the whole performance came in. As we have seen, the man started in to speak in the most gentle and lamb-like manner, with voice quiet and soft; but, as he proceeded his voice gathered strength and he warmed up by hearing himself tell of the wickedness of the men who were opposing slavery, and he became more and still more bitter toward them as he neared his peroration. Then, fairly frothing at the mouth, he would roar forth in the most vituperative language at his command his hatred of all known and unknown Abolitionists every- where. This he continued to do until from very physical exhaustion he was obliged to stop. And then, lowering his voice lower and still lower until finally HAROLD F. BLAKE. 59 to the very point from whence he started to speak, he would, in almost a gentle whisper say: " I wish they were all in h 11, and that's all I've got to say about it." As no man knoweth from whence the sparrow cometh, or whither it goeth, so, as I have said, I don't know from whence this man came when he landed in Kensington, or who his relatives were, if he had any, or even who he lived with, though I am sure that he lived on the Stumpfield road somewhere, or what he did for a living while in town, or to what parts he migrated when he left. But I do know that he was an alien to our soil, that he was a rabid and uncompromising Copperhead, the only one that ever lived within our boundaries, that I heard him many times make the speech in manner and form as here set down, that his name was Charley Nutter Brown, and that he stuttered. XI The Parson's Donation Party in War Times IN the old days, as all good country folk know, in addition to his yearly stipend it was customary for the preacher to benefit by what should come to him through the semi-annual donation parties; and it can be said that, while no preconcerted action by donor's could, under the circumstances, be taken, these parties were intended to be of the most practi- cal and substantial character, that is to say, for the purpose of filling of the preacher's larder, though it often happened that the clergyman received a super- abundance of some particular thing; yea, not in- 60 RE-TOLD TALES OF WAR TIMES. frequently things that no one in his family ever ate or used. However, the parties in themselves were always a source of much pleasure and enjoyment to both the pastor and his people. Whether these time-honored functions have passed away with many of the other old-time customs or not, I do not know. If they have, then the telling of the following story will bring back to mind again, not only the story of the average donation party, but of one particular party, and it will point out how it was that very queer things happened sometimes because of this method of parishoners donating " hit-or-miss," as was their custom. To make this clear I will tell what happened at a party given to Parson E. in 1863. First of all, as at all such gatherings, the menfolk and boyfolk take note of the appearance of both womenfolk and girlfolk, and as I saw them then I see them now, many of them with their hair in curls or ringlets, others with their hair in silken nets, hanging low down at the back of the neck, all wearing prim white collars held together at the throat with pink- and-white cameo brooch, and all wearing hoop-skirts and wide-spreading crinoline. Had my reader been present, and interested to see how much the good Shepherd was to benefit, and had kept tabs, the inventory would have shown about as follows : Six families brought clothespins, six dozen in a package, seven brought each two salt codfish, five brought one dozen each of laundry soap, one a cake of shaving soap, two brought each a smoked ham (32-pounders), three subscriptions for the New York HAROLD F. BLAKE. 61 Tribune, five for the Exeter News-Letter, three for Harper's Weekly, two for the Atlantic monthly, five brought Robert's Farmers' Almanac, and three brought Dudley Leavett's. The several individual donations of necessary and useful articles of ordinary family consumption amounted in the aggregate as follows : Three pounds of salt pork, two pounds of leaf lard, one dozen smoked herring, one pound of coffee, Mocha and Java mixed, and two large fresh pork spareribs. All told there were twenty-three pounds of butter, nineteen gallons of vinegar, sixteen bags of table salt, and all of the packages of cayenne pepper weighed two and three-fourths pounds. There were seventeen bottles of extract of lemon, twenty- two bottles of vanilla and sixteen sticks of Rising Sun stove polish. The different lots of potato starch weighed twenty-nine pounds; one ream of writing paper and eleven bottles of ink, twenty-seven pieces of store cheese, and fourteen lots of home-made " cottage " or " sour-milkers." There were fourteen lots of French turnips, or about six bushels, and four bushels English ; in all there was but one-half peck of potatoes, but what they fell short in potatoes they made up in pump- kins there were eighty-nine of these and all big ones but only one squash, a small one. The cab- bages totaled 111, Savoy's and " drum-heads " about equally apportioned, and one-half peck of onions, one and one-half pounds of granulated sugar and two pounds of brown sugar, ten gallons of molasses six Porto Rico and four New Orleans, made before the war and of apples there were thirty-three 62 RE-TOLD TALES OF WAR TIMES. bushels of various sorts, amongst them one bushel of " jillyflowers," at that time considered the finest eat- ing apple grown in New England, a species now ex- tinct, I believe. Of pop-corn there were some six- teen bushels, on the cob, of course. Going on with our inventory we found that there were nineteen quarts of yellow-eye, sixteen quarts of red kidney and twenty-two quarts of small pea beans. There were thirteen quarter-gross of lucifer matches. It being " walnut year " the sixteen lots of shelled walnuts amounted to something over three and three- fourths bushels. There were nine bushels of carrots, three pecks of winter pears, five forequarters of mutton, a miscel- laneous lot of horse radish and artichokes, eleven and one-fourth bushels of beets, twenty-one quarts of "boiled cider," and several bunches each of sage, summer-savory and thyme, several bunches of catnip, also three circingles and a blanket for the parson's nag. The busy housewives brought eleven quart and seventeen pint jars of picalilli, thirteen bottles of chowchow and sixteen of catsup, nine of chutney sauce and three large firkins of " boiled cider apple sauce," about sixty quarts in all. There were several pots and jars of pickles and preserves besides, and someone brought a big stone jar of mincemeat. The good old grandmarms had knitted fourteen pairs of wool socks and nine pairs of woolen mittens for the parson, and they topped off their gifts with a full web of fine cotton cloth, unbleached, suitable for underwear, sheets and pillow cases. HAROLD F. BLAKE. 63 There was money given, too, and not a little of it was of a very unique sort, and as it had but recently appeared in our parts it awakened a great curiosity among all classes of people. Believing that it may not be without interest to some of my readers, of the younger generation at least, I will tell about it. But first, let us go to the " lightstand in the corner," where we will see a pretty glass dish waiting to re- ceive the cash donations always expected at these gatherings. We have not long to wait to see the money accumulate. And such money ! Script it was called, and it was issued in 3, 5, 10, 25 and 50- cent denominations. Issued by whom it may be asked ? The answer is, by anybody. Yet there was neither gold or silver or other security behind it, and was nothing more nor less than a note of hand, simply a promise to pay, given in the form of script, and any one who wanted to issue it could do so. If a man owning and operating a sawmill, grocery store, hotel, black- smith's shop or any other kind of a shop could the better handle his business by putting out a quantity of this script, he did so. Among others I remember that Charles E. Morrill, grocer at East Kingston, John D. Locke, grocer at Sea- brook, Joshua Getchell, hardware, J. F. Lyford, dry- goods, and Fogg & Fellows, booksellers and periodi- cal dealers at Exeter, and Darius Towle, hotel keeper and wagon-builder at Kingston, all issued a lot of this script money. Mr. Towle alone issued several thousand dollars worth of it. Why he issued so much more than any one else about the county was this: He needed the money to finance the building 64 RE-TOLD TALES OF WAR TIMES. of large numbers of army wagons that he contracted to build for the Government during the war with the South. However, no one seemed to have any love for it. All looked upon it with contempt, some with suspicion, but every one called it " shinplaster," and it looked the part. But, as these were the times that tried men's souls, and women's too, they accepted even the " shinplaster " as tokens of currency value. And so, piled high in the dish, one could see these tiny scraps of paper, printed in red, green, black and brown, the denominational value of the script; the name and place of abode of the payee, who promised to pay on demand the amount " nominated in the bond," etc., etc., and it is probable , that we saw many other names printed on these small pieces of paper, with simply a promise to pay the bearer on demand, as we have said, the amount " nominated in the bond." All this did seem mighty strange at the time, but it seems a hundredfold more strange to us to-day to recall that such things were actually done in Rock- ingham County, even in war times, but 't is true. I cannot drop this subject without remarking that I have often wondered what became of that dirty old " shinplaster " token of money. So far as I know or ever heard, what was not lost or kept as curio specimens of war's currency necessities, this script was all redeemed by those who issued it. At least this is true in so far as it relates to our part of the country. But, to the donator and to the donatee on the night of this donation party the old script of the war period passed at its face value. All this which I have written may be of interest to the anti- HAROLD F. BLAKE. 65 quary if not to the general reader. But, while we have been telling about it " heeps " of the old make- shift currency has been placed in the receiver. But let us now proceed with our story. " The famous cooks of Kensington " also brought with them a hundred good things for hosts and guests to eat. These were served by rosy-cheeked misses in clean, spic-and-span white aprons and frocks, and after the refreshments all the folk, old and young, joined in singing the popular songs of the day, " John Brown's Body Lies a Mouldering in the Grave," " Red, White and Blue," " Marching Through Georgia," " We 're Tenting To-night on the Old Camp Ground," "I Wish I Was in Dixie," " We '11 Hang Jeff Davis to a Sour Apple Tree," and other popular songs of the time. After these were sung a little miss recited " Three Grains of Corn, Mother, Only Three Grains of Corn," and then one of the popular young ladies gave us "Bingen on the Rhine," with great dramatic force, and which called for repeated efforts on her part, but being of that family she was sure to succeed. And there were other numbers on the program, but I have left the one great event or feature of the evening to tell last, the story of John Pat Lamprey and the quintal of mackerel. As for John Pat himself, it is doubtful if he was himself at this party, for he was not inclined to at- tend such functions, nor was he what would be called a church-going man, though a sterling upright man and Christian. But, as the support of the church, and its work in the community, was a strongly grounded tradition and custom of his family, and 66 RE-TOLD TALES OF WAR TIMES. had been so for many generations traditions in which he took great pride he felt morally bound to uphold its ancient customs as well as its untar- nished good name. There was another impelling force, he was a great admirer, and had been since they were children, of his two sisters, who had always lived with him in the great farmhouse. And well he might, for they were both very beautiful women, both highly cultivated intellectually, and both greatly interested in the work and general welfare of their church. Then, too, to his wife he was a very devoted husband, and as she, too, was an active worker in the same church, we can see that he had every incentive to help the* family church in material ways. So John Pat never failed to contribute liberally towards every good and charitable movement in which his wife and sisters were interested, and his contributions were not of the things of commonplace farm production, but of articles that required real cash money to acquire. Acting on this principle, he having seen in Frank Milliard's store a quintal of A No. 1 salt mackerel, and being extremely fond of such fish himself, he decided to purchase and contribute the whole lot towards the parson's fall donation, then near at hand. And so he ordered delivery of same to be made to Parson E., day and date of the said party. Before proceeding further I should say that this particular donation party was in every way success- ful socially, as well as in the quantity and value of the contributions to the larder of the parsonage, as the pastor saw the following day, when he, upon taking an inventory, found much to be thankful for. Al- HAROLD F. BLAKE. 67 beit he found but a comparatively small quantity of either white or brown sugar, or lard, or squash, or tea, or coffee, and not a single parishoner had thought of a barrel, or even of a bag of flour, which at that time the cheapest St. Louis was worth twenty dollars and upwards per barrel. But, on the whole the pastor found that he was well supplied with many useful articles of food and raiment, even in some things superabundantly supplied. Yes, it was a most bounteous and acceptable dona- tion of useful things and all could be made use of in due time, everything save one, the quintal of mack- erel no one in the family ever ate it. And so the quintal of mackerel remained in the storeroom for some time. Finally, it occurred to the parson that the best thing to do would be to exchange the mackerel for sugar and other things of daily consumption, and upon inquiry, Mr. Billiard said that he would gladly make the exchange, and did so to their mutual advantage. Now, it so happened that on the same day of this barter and exchange of mackerel for groceries, John Pat went to the postoffice, where, seeing a newly opened quintal of mackerel, he purchased ten pounds. Being " freshened over night " and boiled the next day for dinner, he and his family really feasted. In- deed, so much did they enjoy them, that he went to the store the same night and purchased fifteen pounds more. And a second, and third and several other excellent breakfasts and dinners were the result of his purchases. And, as they feasted, so they hoped that the fish given to the parson were as good, 68 RE-TOLD TALES OF WAR TIMES. and being relished as much as the ones they were eating. Indeed, so much did the family enjoy their meals of mackerel, that they decided to purchase more of them, and so by quick action John Pat was able to purchase the balance of the lot. And so it was that J. P. and his household folk enjoyed their feasts of A No. 1 salt mackerel from time to time nearly all winter, and it was not until several weeks after the last one had been eaten that the story leaked out and he learned the true story of how he had bought at wholesale in the first place ; given them away at wholesale in the second place, and in the third place had repurchased them at retail for his own family use. The reader may well believe the story as I have told it, but to have heard John Pat tell the part he played in it was a rare treat, and one to remember a lifetime. Even the remembrance of the manner in which he told the story, with all the embellishments, such as only a Lamprey could introduce into the commonplace, awakens memories that bring with them many another gathering of Kensington folk similar in character to the one here but barely half told. Yes, even now, I can see in the shadows of the low-burning night-lamp, and in fancy, scores of smiling and familiar faces as I saw them on the night of this donation party, and at other gatherings of a kindred nature. Yes, this was a very pleasant party and successful, though the war-clouds made the days dark in the land, and many hearts were aching, for there were not many young men to be seen at such places dur- HAROLD F. BLAKE. 69 ing the years between 1862 and 1865, for more than seventy of the flower of our manhood, all of them in the prime of life, were away with the armies in the South ; and, while many a woman was there in her person, her heart was with her loved one in the tent, on the march, on the battlefield, or in the hos- pital far away. And the prayer of the minister was one of peculiar tenderness and solicitude for the Kensington soldiers. He asked the Father's especial watchful care over them, that they might be spared to return to their homes and loved ones, and the prayer found echoing response from mother, wife, sister and sweetheart, for they were all there and listened, and in their hearts prayed with him. As I bring this little true home story to its close I ask myself, and I wonder, how many that are now living remember this story of John Pat and his quin- tal of mackerel? All too few, too few. But of the personal characteristics, brilliant attain- ments and splendid qualities of mind and heart of all the members of this remarkable family, John P., Samuel, Sarah and Esther, there are many living who knew and remember them as I have recalled them,- who know that they wrought zealously for the good of their home, their church, their neighbor- hood and their town. Yes, each and all gave their whole-hearted support to every good cause and movement in their native town for a great many years. And they lived long, and the world was the better and brighter and more cheerful for their being in it. And, when they passed to the realm from whence there is no return, and we saw them not, we oft called up from the storehouse of memory their 70 RE-TOLD TALES OF WAR TIMES. names, as I am now doing, and in the recollection of them there would come back, as there now comes back, none but sweet and pleasant memories of them. And even now my thoughts linger and my pen hesi- tates to put down the words that ends the story of the parson's donation party in war times. XII And So It Is WHETHER it be book or booklet, large or small, of few chapters or many, it appears that in spite of the author there is inevitably bound to be a last chapter; and, while any one of the pre- ceding chapters could well have been the last, the fact seems to be that no one of them proved to be so. The real reason for this is that the last chapter was left for the telling of the story of The Kensington Brass Band OF this band it can be said that it was recognized throughout the State as being a very superior musical organization; and, it may be said that it was at the zenith of its fame between the years 1856 and 1861, or up to the time of the Civil War. It can also be said that nearly every man connected with the band was a trained musician, and well he might be with such a musical genius for bandmaster as was John V. Hodgdon. Scarcely from my own knowledge but from pa- ternal lips and others ' I have learned that the leader 1 See letter and stories by James R. Gray in addendum. HAROLD F. BLAKE. 71 himself played the E-flat cornet, that William F. Blake and Amos Rowell played the B-flat cornets (what a golden opportunity that would have been for Judge Shute) ; that Samuel Lamprey played the flute, William H. Hodgdon and Warren Hodgdon clarinets, George Blake and James R. Gray B-flat tenor horns, Harvey D. Sanborn and Jackson Shaw alto horns, William Hilton and Stephen Henry Brown post-horns, Thomas H. Blake trombone, Henry Crosby a French horn, James W. W. Brown a bass horn, Ferdinand L. Blake and Charles E. Batchelder double-bass horns, Franklin Tilton the cymbals, Henry T. Blake the snare drum, and Hyla D. Peacock the bass drum. There were probably others who played in the band, but the foregoing are all the names that come to the author's mind. Our band first came into county-wide notice and prominence during the presidential campaign of 1856, and later during the campaign of 1860, when it furnished music at political gatherings of the several political parties. Probably the most notable of these political meet- ings was the one held in Greenland under the leader- ship of the Hon. Albert Blaisdell (born and bred in Kensington), and when they "raised" a flag for Douglas and Johnson, and where Gov. John S. Wells was the chief speaker of the day. The band also furnished music at political meetings in Kingston, Exeter, Seabrook, and if I am not mistaken, at a political "rally" in Portsmouth, but certainly at Hampton, where the democrats had a great meeting and with it a big barbecue, said to have been the largest ever held in the State. 72 RE-TOLD TALES OF WAR TIMES. But the one great event in the band's history, which was nonpartisan and nonsectarian in its char- acter, was the great Independence Day celebration given under its own management on July 4, 1859. The scene of this great picnic, as they called it, was laid in the Newell Healey pasture at the summit of the hill over which runs Pevear Lane. On the south side of this " Lane " there stood, at the time of which I am writing, a beautiful grove of middle growth pines, which, like every acre of Healey's farm, was free from all foreign or noxious growth, and so this beautiful growth of pines were free from all scraggy undergrowth thus with its perfect carpet of pine needles it was an ideal spot for placing the long rows of tables whereon to serve the great banquet (as oft observed) such as only " the famous cooks of Kensington " could prepare and serve. After the feasting the people sat at the tables in the cool of the shade caused by the closely woven branches of the sweetly fragrant pine, and listened to the Hon. Alvah Wood, the orator of the day and the other speakers as they told the story of the Rev- olution, of the " poise and patience " of Washington ; of Hancock, of Adams, of our own Governor Josiah Bartlett ; of the wisdom of Benjamin Franklin ; of the fervid eloquence of Patrick Henry and James Otis, and of the almost divinely inspired genius of the author of the Declaration of Independence Thomas Jeffer- son ; and, how these and others wrought miracles in the council chamber, and on the battle fields, as we have so often mentioned, at Concord, Lexington, Bunker Hill, Valley Forge, Camden and Yorktown. HAROLD F. BLAKE. 73 They told of the personal heroism of the everyday people " of the farm, forge and mill," and of how they suffered and endured in " mind, body and purse " to the end that the Colonies " might be Free and Independent." Yes, the story they told that day the eighty-second birthday of the nation was a deeply interesting one, for the patriot fore- fathers of many who listened had worn the buff coat, and had carried the old flintlock musket during the long days, months and years when, as Franklin said, " If they did not hang together they would hang sep- arately." Ah ! yes, those were the days when old-fashioned oratory was in vogue, and appreciated. But, as I have said, who the other speakers were, alas, there are none near to refresh the memory of the teller of the tale. And yet, at the last moment there does come to mind that there was another speaker, a sort of half crazy fellow by the name of Brocklebank, who styled himself Joseph of old, and the better to prove it always wore a coat of many colors. Being known as an itinerant orator, and known far and wide throughout the /county as a " crazy coot" with only one theme the heroes of the Revolution to lend comedy to the occasion was invited to speak along with the others, and he was certainly one of the funny events of the day. Regarding other and more specific or detailed events of the day: Even though too small to "be there " I yet remember that the citizens formed the procession at the townhouse, and that, headed by the band, with all its members clothed in their new, clean and bright uniforms, white caps, blue coats and 74 RE-TOLD TALES OF WAR TIMES. white trousers, it marched down through the " city" and up the Pevear Lane to the picnic grounds, play- ing lively marching music as it went over the route ; and, we know that it played many stirring and patriotic airs during the afternoon and evening. Nor should we omit recording that in the open pasture, at the very crown of the hill and directly opposite the grove, with its pine-canopied tables, and where, as we have seen, the banquet was served and speeches were made, a large cannon, directly under the charge of Frank Levering and Lewis Gove, was discharged at regular intervals from noon until mid- night ; nor, must we forget to say that in the even- ing not only very large numbers of home people,, but great numbers of visitors " from all the country round " came to enjoy the very great display of fire- works provided. Indeed, in those days they never did things by halves. Yes, all in all, it is unquestionably true that the Fourth of July, 1859, was the_ greatest day in the history of Kensington. It may be of sufficient interest to the reader to warrant the lengthening of the story to mention sev- eral of the individual members of our old band, men, who later served their country in its military bands during the Civil War. The older generations of the town will remember that all of the Hodgdons were accomplished musicians, John being especially so. His reputation as a thorough musician, and especially his well known ability and efficiency as a bandmaster, was such that the Gov- ernment, immediately after his enl'istment, assigned him to the leadership of the band stationed at the HAROLD F. BLAKE. 75 Portsmouth Navy Yard. Later it transferred him to Washington, where he was made bandmaster of the band now known throughout the world as the Marine Band. Amos Rowell was, by request of Mr. Hodg- don, assigned first to Portsmouth and then to Wash- ington, and played under Hodgdon, and under his instruction became the premier cornet soloist of the even then celebrated band. Parenthetically, I may say again that this band, under the leadership of Hodgdon, furnished the mu- sic at the Soldiers ' Home in Washington during the summers of war time because of the fact that Presi- dent Lincoln and his family occupied a cottage there during that period of the year. I recall, as a pleasant recollection, that Mr. Eaton and his wife, and my father and I (the boy who served the President as a special telegraph messenger during the week), frequently of a Sunday afternoon walked across the open waste lands laying between Columbia College Hospital on 14th street, where we made our home, as so often mentioned in this little booklet, to the said Soldiers ' Home, on 7th street, to listen to the music rendered by this the best of all our military bands. And whenever we went the reader can well imagine the pride we felt when we saw the gentle, low-voiced, but now recognized great musician, our townsman, standing in front of and directing his players, and when opportunity permitted, in his quiet way beckoning us to go forward to shake hands with him. Then too, to have warm-hearted Amos Rowell leave his place and come forward to the rail to shake hands and to chat with us, which, no doubt by many was thought to be a very great 76 RE-TOLD TALES OF WAR TIMES. honor; but no, we did not think of it in that sense, for we knew that our meeting together thus gave equal pleasure to all we were all Kensington folk. But, later, when for our benefit we knew, band- master Hodgdon selected a piece of music where our dearly loved friend Amos played the cornet solo part, our hearts did then swell with pride, surely. When, for an encore, he played " Home, Sweet Home," Ah ! then it was that heart-beats were faster, and more than Kensington tears were seen to flow. President Lincoln and his family, in their cottage nearby, we knew enjoyed the music with the rest of us, but I am sure that there were none who listened to the patriotic airs and tender folk-lore melodies,- or to the hearty applause bestowed upon the band, and especially for its cornet soloist, felt more pardonable pride, as I have said, in the merited approbation than was felt by the little group of four from Kensington. I have said that the musicians were greeted with applause, but it was not always so, for after listening to such melodies as " Old Kentucky Home," " Down on the Swanee River," " Auld Lang Syne," or " Home, Sweet Home," the hearts of the soldier- boys were too pentup with emotion to cheer; no, their eyes, many of them, were wet with tears and must be wiped away. Their lips trembled, and, as I have said, their hearts weres wollen to overflowing as the sweet home songs carried the thoughts of all back to their home firesides, " to father, mother, wife, children and sweetheart." But these two men, Hodgdon and Rowell, were not the only members of the old Kensington Brass Band who served their country in its military bands HAROLD F. BLAKE. 77 during the war. While I cannot name them all I do recall the fact that immediately after they enlisted these men were assigned to various regimental and brigade bands : William F. Blake, George Blake, Henry Crosby, Charles E. Batchelder, Ferdinand L. Blake, Stephen Henry Brown, Samuel Lamprey and Henry T. Blake, and, as I have said, there were proba- bly some others. Henry T. Blake, the former drummer-boy, and the youngest member of the Kensington Band, as he was the youngest to enlist from Kensington, is the only one living, who served his country in a military band, from Kensington, and who helped to make the music on the day of Kensington's greatest celebra- tion on July 4, 1859. We are now at the end of our little neighborhood stories that tell of the soldiers of Kensington, the men who from the beginning to the end, as patriots have played their little parts for the good of the common weal ; helped to secure, helped to main- tain, helped to preserve conditions in our own be- loved State and country that makes for them an asylum, a refuge and abiding place for the peoples of the earth who come here because they love liberty and justice, apart from militarism, and because they know that when they actually renounce their former citizenship and take the oath of allegiance to our country, under the Stars and Stripes they will re- ceive protection, and that as citizens living under its protecting folds they will be given equal opportunity under the law. That God may bless and prosper the living veter- ans for whose pleasure this little booklet has been 78 RE-TOLD TALES OF WAR TIMES. prepared, and help us all to cherish and keep green the memory of the near four score Kensington sol- diers, their comrades, who have passed and been mustered into the Great Beyond, is the prayer of the AUTHOR. THE END. Montreal, P. Q., May 31, 1916. ADDENDUM *TpHE teller of these "tales" long since discovered that while the * better part of mankind usually put the best and most interest- ing part of their story into the postscript, the other part more fre* quently spoil theirs by the adding of one. However, at the risk of spoiling all that has gone before, a few pages must needs be added to tell of a recent journey and of calls made upon a few old soldier friends in Kensington and thereabouts. And so, as this journey was made principally to see and have a chat with the few remaining old veterans of the Civil War and their families, I will not mention here the other and many delightful calls upon friends that were made. My first call was made upon Mr. Joseph N. Austin and his wife. Except being a little hard of hearing, Mr. Austin I found to be in very good health. Our talk was a long one and reminiscent not only of war times, but of "hand-turn " shoemaking days, when the little 12 x 12 shoeshops were scattered about the town, and all so cheerfully lighted during the long nights of winter; of how the political pot was kept boiling, and the game played every day in the year; of the singing and dancing schools; of dances and "balls" and picnics, huskings, donation-parties, caucuses, school and town meetings, and the time sped all too quickly, for our talk had been a pleasant one. Edward Fellows, a brother-in-law of Mr. Austin, lives nearby, and I found him in most excellent health, in the field with hoe in HAROLD F. BLAKE. 79 hand. Mr. Fellows is a widower. His wife (as a girl Isabel Aus- tin), could well lay claim to having a most remarkable personal con- nection and interest in the Civil War, for her first husband, Mr. Amos Rowell, and her second husband, Mr. Fellows, were both soldiers, as were four of her five brothers. Yes, this call, I am sure was a pleasant one to both. From thence it was but a short drive to see another lovable old veteran, Mr. James W. W. Brow r n, whom I found in the front yard with his wife, waiting the scribe's coming, it almost seemed. Mr. Brown having recently passed through a serious surgical opera- tion, was not in such vigor and strength physically as of late years, 1 but we had a good long talk over the days before the war, when every bug was a most beautiful butterfly, of the war itself, of how he shared the tent with my uncle "Bill" Blake, and of the inter- vening years since; of men and women, of things and events; and, it was all interesting, mutually so, and into the spirit of our conver- sation Mrs. Brown, who is in excellent health, fully entered. How delighted the traveler would have been to have seen in his old home, dear, brilliant, witty and versatile Sam Lamprey. But alas! he had long since joined his fathers. As I passed by I thought of a little incident that took place in our front room in the old farmhouse soon after he had enlisted in 1862. He had been over to Exeter, and wishing to remember my grand- mother with a friendship token before he went to the war, bought her a silk handkerchief. Now it so happened that Sam had " recip- rocated " with Exeter friends several times, and therefore was feel- ing pretty well by the time he reached our house. To show grand- marm how good and strong his gift to her was he caught the hand- kerchief by two of its corners and snapped it vigorously a half a dozen times and with increasing force each time. Grandmarm and we young folk were greatly pleased over the performance, and childlike wanted more, which Sam proceeded to do; but, during the interval, or while he rambled on with his story, Sam uncon- sciously caught up the handkerchief by its opposite corners, and as 1 On the 8th of Nov. (1916), Mr. Brown passed away in his seventy-sixth year. 80 RE-TOLD TALES OF WAR TIMES. the last previous demonstration had been of such force as to cause wonderment, not only to the young folk but to the older ones as well, when he was ready to give his last windup demonstration all were on hand to see it. Now it so happened that because of the aforesaid reciprocal courtesies betwixt friends at Exeter, or it may be because of the gentle warmth of the early September day, Sam had become pretty glib of tongue, and in consequence thereof felt it incumbent upon himself to make a speech, and he proceeded at once to make one of the witty Sam Lamprey kind. It was given, as he said, to elucidate and demonstrate to his listeners wherein and why anything made from silk was of such strength as to defy the strength of man; nothing could tear it. "Look! " At this point Sam repeated his last demonstration, and the handker- chief came apart as though it had been made of tissue paper. He had this time tested it by chance the wrong way of the grain. Sam* never opened his mouth. And so as I passed by his old home I could but smile as I saw him in my mind's eye tear the silk souvenir handkerchief he had given to grandmarm. Though Sam never gave her a whole one grandmarm kept the two parts of the demonstration handkerchief all her days. Poor Sam, there never was another like thee, so witty, brilliant, attractive and so lovable. Not a long way up the road, and we come to the old manse of the late Col. John T. Blake, whose sons, George and Henry T. , were both good soldiers. The elder of the two, George, has been dead several years, but Henry, who resides in Haverhill, Mass., fortunately was visiting his niece Esther, in his old home, and so he and I enjoyed the telling and listening to many an old tale of the days when he played the snare drum in the old Kensington band. Charles E. Gove was the next war veteran to see, and I was very glad to find him in most excellent health. The writer hopes that it will long continue so, and that the smile he wore on the day we chatted together will long remain a comfort to him and pleasure to his friends. I am happy to add that his wife, formerly Annie Fel- lows, is also in good health. May good health remain and be with this old couple these many years. HAROLD F. BLAKE. 81 The next call was made upon Sophia, widow of the late Lewis E. Gove. Mr. Gove being a veteran of the Civil War and a life-long intimate friend of my father, I had anticipated a pleasant visit with Mrs. Gove, but was pained to learn of her very severe illness, and because of it I was unable to greet and pay my respects to her as I had fondly wished. I sincerely hope that health and strength will come back to this dear old friend, speedily. The next call made was upon Mr. Weare Nudd Shaw, "Soldier and Sage of Orchard Hill," the man of marvelous vitality, both mental and physical. As illustrating the former I will say that when I entered his study I found that he had been reading the Congres- sional Record of 1856. Thus I could see that it is in such musty old volumes as these that he loves to delve, and from out of which he gleans and gives to his large numbers of readers many items of historical interest. A full hour was spent with this delightfully in- teresting old friend. Knowing that I had been for some time seek- ing information relative to the part Kensington men had played in our several wars, he gave me further data and information, and I made him happy by giving him many items of legendary lore, as well as not a few historical facts, all interesting to the antiquarian. Mr. Shaw's large farm is being managed by one of his sons, and with his 'house being managed by the very capable wife of the farmer-son, Mr. Shaw, without thought or anxiety concerning the "weather, crops or taxes, " is enjoying most excellent health, and is supremely happy in his books, his writing, and in his hosts of friends. May all these be his to enjoy yet many a day is the hope of his admiring friend, the writer. With a good horse, and over the new modern road it was but a short drive to the neighboring town of Newton, where lives Mr. Benj. Frank Austin, one of the youngest of the Kensington sol- diers, and thither I went to see him. Though it had been many years since I had seen him, a royal welcome was extended by both this young old veteran and his wife. Himself in full vigor, mentally and physically, and his life's companion equally so, it was indeed a pleasure to spend a few hours with them, to talk over school days with her, of the days when he wore the suit of blue and ate hardtack 82 RE-TOLD TALES OF WAR TIMES. and " salt-horse," the days when it was to take quinine and whiskey copiously or suffer the devils of fever and ague, to suffer the evils of the camp sutler, of the suffering from rain, snow and cold that came to the soldier because of the fearfully inadequate shelter afforded by the small army tent, of the forced march, the battle, the hospital, of the death of comrades and their burial under a flag of truce it may be; of the home-coming and hearty welcome at the door; of the shoemaking days in the little 12 x 12 shops and the larger shops later; of the days when such as he "a-sparking went," of the mar- riage, the children, numbers of them, and now all well and well-to- do in the world, and of the grandchildren, too, all living and none missing. Truly this dear couple have much to be thankful for. May God bless him, and them, and theirs, and such as they are everywhere. A little way down the road lives Mr. Edward Swett. Mr. Swett was one of those who came to Kensington from East Kingston in 1862 to enlist. As a soldier his record was clean. -He played hi part well and truly as a good soldier should, served his full three years and was honorably discharged. Living a well-ordered and regular life his years have been long and filled with contentment, which we are told is akin to a continual feast. In the city of Lynn, Mass., lives, and it was a pleasure to meet, another Kensington boy, one who enlisted with so many others be- longing to the grand old town in 1862, Mr. George A. Baston. It may be said here that out of the seventy-two Kensington men who served in the War of the Rebellion there were but three who went into the marine corps of the navy, namely, the above named Mr. Baston, George A. Cilley and Mr. J. LeRoy Hilliard. The latter was stricken with typhoid fever the second day out of Portsmouth, and was buried at sea. Mr. Baston served his full term of enlist- ment of three years, was under Farragut in the naval engagements before New Orleans, Vicksburg and Port Hudson, and was on the flagship Hartford in the great battles at the entrance to Mobile Bay, August 5, 1864. I found Mr. Baston in excellent health, one of the best preserved of the Kensington war veterans. Mr. James R. Gray The reader will recall that James R. Gray of East Kingston was a HAROLD F. BLAKE. 83 member of the Kensington brass band during the years 1853-61, and that he was a soldier. Learning that Mr. Gray was still living, and in Haverhill, Mass., I went to see him. While Mr. Gray is in his 84th year his genera} health is most excellent. To-day he is still wearing his city con- stable's badge, which he has worn over thirty years. Mr. Gray made the call delightfully pleasant with reminiscent stories about the old band in Kensington, and the telling of his experiences in the war. While much could be put down that he said, I must for- bear, and yet will briefly say that Mr. Gray was a sergeant of Co. C., Sixth New Hampshire Regt., and was with General Grant at the siege and capture of Vicksburg, July 4, 1863. Being Forage Master of the Commissary Department of the Ninth Corps he was detailed to take into the city food and medicine for the half-starved people, old men, women and children (all able-bodied men were in the Confederate army), which he did with six six-mule army wagons, his loads being made up of quinine, tea, coffee, sugar, hard-tack, salt pork and salt. Vicksburg had been encircled for more than four months by General Grant's "chain of steel," and to illustrate how completely the city had been isolated and cut off from the outside world by this chain of steel, and her dire needs not only of the necessaries of life but of the ordinary business necessities the Vickshurg Daily Citizen (J. M. Swords, proprietor), was being printed on the back side of mighty cheap wallpaper. Mr. Gray, riding at the head of his six-mule wagon supply train, was the first to enter the city ( General Pem- berton had an hour before surrendered his army of 30,000 Confed- erates just outside of the city proper ) he secured half a dozen copies of this paper fresh from the press, this last edition printed on wall paper, and Mr. Gray possesses to-day one copy of this fifty- three year-old " Johnny Reb " daily paper. Mr. Gray assenting the writer copied and below inserts a news item and an editorial or two from this remarkable newspaper. The paper was set up to be issued on July 2, 1863, and we can nonu read with a smile, though it were cause for no smiles then, what the editor says, to be published that day, under the caption of 84 RE-TOLD TALES OF WAR TIMES. "MULE MEAT" We are indebted to Major Gillespie for a steak of Confederate beef alias meat. We have tried it, and can assure our friends that if it is rendered necessary, they need have no scruples at eating the meat. It is sweet, savory and tender, and so long as we have a mule left we are satisfied our soldiers will be content to subsist on it. In another column and directly under the date of the paper (July 2) we read this: ON DIT: That the Great Ulysses the Yankee Generalis- simo, surnamed Grant has expressed his intention of dining in Vicksburg on Saturday next, and celebrating the 4th of July by a grand dinner and so forth. When asked if he would invite General Jo Johnston to join him he said, " No! for fear there will be a row at table." Ulysses must first get into the city before he can dine in it. The way to cook a rabbit is " first to catch the rabbit." It is evident that the Daily Citizen did not leave the press nor was it issued on the day of its date, or the next day, for there appears in the last column of the one sheet paper under date of July 4, tha, day of the surrender, what appears to be its valedictory editorial. Whether written by its own editor or by some one who came into the city with the conquerors, the next to the last sentence throws doubt. Here it is: "Two days bring about great changes. The banner of the Union floats over Vicksburg. General Grant has ' ' caught the rabbit; " he has dined in Vicksburg, and he did bring his dinner with him. The Citizen lives to see it. For the last time it appears on "wall paper." No more will it imagine the luxury of mule meat and fricasseed kitten, urge Southern warriors to such diet never more. This is the last " wall paper " edition, and is, except- ing this note, from the types as we found them. It will be valuable hereafter as a curiosity." Mr. Gray had also another interesting souvenir, a book of poems taken from the city residence of Jefferson Davis at Jackson, Miss., and, he related many another story, all intensely interesting, but space forbids more. The letter below from Mr. Gray is breezy with items of interest of the days of the Kensington brass band: Haverhill, Mass., August 24, 1916. Mr. H. F. Blake, Montreal, Canada. My dear old Friend: I thank you for sending me to read over the list of the HAROLD F. BLAKE. 85 names of the members of the old Kensington brass band, of which, as you say, I was a member during the years from 1854 to 1861, and I think, way into 1862. Even the instruments they played, as I remember them, were very nearly, if not exactly, as you state it. As you point out these old-time names, these friends of long ago, they all come back to me as though but yesterday; and, not only the instruments they played, but the uniforms they wore I can see also. Indeed, I well remember about the great picnic you mention, and even remember how we marched down through the "city" at the head of the procession. More than this, I remember very distinctly that we played our favorite march, "The Norfolk Guard," as we passed Tom Blake's store. I must correct one statement that you make. You say that every member of the band was a "trained musician " and this holds good except in one case. Billy Hilton did not know a single note, played everything " by ear," and had to have every new piece played over to him once, and only once, when he could play it perfectly from beginning to end. Otherwise your statement is right, for every man in the band except Billy could read music at sight, and under such a bandmaster as John V. Hodgdon we could not help being pretty good players. Henry Blake, our old drummer boy, and I, are the only two sur- vivors of the old band, the old Kensington band, so far as I know. Thanking you again for letting me look over the list, and what you/ say about us, I remain, Yours respectfully, JAMES R. GRAY. Lois F. Eaton The reader will recall that it was stated in the text that the soldier, Mr. John L. Eaton, and his wife, Lois F. Eaton, both from Ken- sington, lived in a tent within the grounds of Columbia College Hospital in Washington in war times, and that in a building near to their tent lived another soldier and a boy, the " messenger boy," and that these two, father and son, were also from Kensington. The years intervening since those faroff troublesome days of war have been many. It has been many years since the soldier-husband passed over to the land of his fathers, but his young soldier-bride, Lois, is still living and in the enjoyment of good health and the com- panionship of congenial friends. Learning recently of her where- abouts I at once wrote her to extend felicitations, and was greatly 86 RE-TOLD TALES OF WAR TIMES. pleased to receive a long and interesting letter from her, which I take the liberty to append below. The Messenger Boy hopes that Lois will live to enjoy good health and comradeship these many years. Newfields, N. H., Sept. 3, 1916. Dear Friend Harold: I have your letter of the 28th of August and I am very glad to hear from you. It is a long, long time since I saw you, but I remember, I shall always remember you as the messenger boy in Washington, living with your father in the clean whitewashed build- ing in the grounds of Columbia College Hospital, within a few feet of where John and I lived in a large new tent. It does not seem but a little while ago that you were the telegraph messenger, and rode down to the city with John when he went down as Major Crosby's orderly, to the city to bring him up to the hos- pital, where he was the chief man in charge, and how you rode John's horse down every morning. Indeed, I read your stories in the News- Letter with very great interest and they brought back many pleasant memories of the old war days. I remember, as though it was but yesterday, the night your father, John, and you started for Ford's Theatre, and how disappointed John was because of being detained by the Major, and you could not get away earlier, and so could get no seats at Ford's, and how you all went to Grover's Theatre. And that very night President Lincoln was killed, but we did not hear of it until next morning. All these things come back to me very often. I remember especially how we four used to go over to hear the band play at the Soldiers' Home, and how John Hodgdon and Amos Rowell always saw and spoke to us. But I cannot write any more. I should like very much to see you sometime, but if I do not see you I want to thank you for the letters in the News-Letter. I am very sorry to learn of your mother's death recently. She was about the last of the old war generation. Sincerely yours, LOIS F. EATON. Mr. and Mrs. John P. M. Green, making their summer home at Hampton Beach, a full half day was most agreeably spent with them there. Mrs. Green before her marriage was Ruth Ann Rowell, they being Kensington boy and girl, and both friends of the writer since boyhood days. Mr. Green, though a veteran of the Civil War, is in excellent health, and when his business permits spends two or three days of each week in the summer in their cottage at the beach, enjoying the HAROLD F. BLAKE. 87 sport that goes with the gun, the boat and fishing-tackle. Mrs. Green, except being lame from an accident some years ago, is the same Ruth Ann her friends have known these many years. Being a sister of both Amos and Edmund Rowell, both mentioned in the text, and her husband all three wearing their suits of blue she can well take pride in what her menfolk did in the days of Abraham Lincoln. The author takes pleasure in including as a part of this little volume her letter below. Hampton Beach, N. H., July 7, 1916. Mr. Harold F. Blake, 212 McGill St., Montreal, Ca. My dear Friend: Replying to yours of recent date concerning my brother Amos: Yes, you are right, Amos was playing in the orchestra in Ford's theatre on the night that President Lincoln was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth. As Amos was at the time a regular member of the Marine Band, and had been for several months, I think that he may have been playing in the theatre orchestra as a spare player, or he may have been employed on this particular occasion of the presidential party being present. However this may be, Amos was there and saw this most awful wicked tragedy in our national history. I am very glad that I am able to confirm your impressions in this matter, and remain, Yours very sincerely, RUTH A. GREEN. Completing the circle and we were over in Exeter. As I have in days past spent many a pleasant hour with "Beany," "Pewt," "Chitter," "Pozzy," "Skinny," "Fatty," "Whacker" and " Keene," " Cele," " Georgie," " May Luverin," " Nell Tole," "Jenny Morrison" and others of his schoolday friends, so I was very glad of the opportunity to call upon and pay my respects to their friendly biographer, Judge Henry A. Shute; and a most de- lightful visit it was to the writer. Judge Shute, may his magic pen further entertain us, make us and keep us boys and girls to the end of the chapter. From thence it was but a few minutes' walk to the home of Cap- tain George N. Julian, whose war time experiences I have already partly told. It is exceedingly pleasant to record that the writer 88 RE-TOLD TALES OF WAR TIMES. found Captain Julian physically well preserved, and mentally as keen and alert as in the days of the "kid gloves," and fife and drum. Interested in the current affairs of the world as well as in past his- torical events, his declining years are passing pleasantly in his large and comfortable home, which, since the death of his devoted though invalid wife, has been presided over by his eldest daughter, Miss Maud V., and further to add to the comfort of his mind and body, enjoying the daily companionship of the younger daughter, Miss Katherine A. And so it is that 'midst his books, his flowers and his friends the home life of the captain is ideal, charmingly so. May all the days of his life be pleasant days for Captain Julian. The letter printed below, containing information, as it does, both of historical and personal interest to the Kensington soldiers, their families and descendents, I take pleasure in printing it. Exeter, N. H., Sept. 7, 1916. Mr. Harold F. Blake, Georgetown, Mass. My dear Friend: Replying to your letter of inquiry concerning my going to Kensington for recruits for my company in the Civil War. To make it all clear why I did this let me briefly tell what led up to it. I enlisted for one year, July 31, 1861, and was mustered into United States Service as a private in the Second Battery, Massachu- setts Light Artillery, known as Nims' Battery, Captain Ormand F. Nims commanding, and was mustered out at 'Baton Rouge, Louisi- ana, July 31, "1862, and returned to Exeter with a lieutenant's com- mission in my pocket, to serve in some New Hampshire regiment to be formed. At the time of my arrival home the 13th New Hampshire Regiment, a three years regiment, was being organized, and I was made Captain of Company E in this regiment. In order to obtain the captaincy, however, I had to get men enough to form a company. This I was able to do between July 31, and Sept. 27, 1862. While engaged in this work, hearing that your father was re- cruiting a good many Kensington men, I went over there and with his assistance secured five men, namely Joseph N. Austin, Stephen llil^y flfl^5QDavid C. Smith, Rufus Eastman and George A. Cilret. ,L A^nAMter of information I will add a line or two to say that Mr. Austin was discharged from service for' disability March 10, HAROLD F. BLAKE. 89 1863, and Mr. Smith for disability March 5, 1863. Mr. Cilley was transferred to the navy April 28, 1864 (date of his discharge un- known). Mr. Brown was transferred to Brigade Band January 20, 1863 and was discharged from the service for disability July 10, 1863. Mr. Eastman served to the expiration of his term of enlistment June 21, 1865. I was myself discharged at the expiration of my three year enlist- ment, and thus you see that I served four years in the War of the Rebellion. These things all happened a long, long time ago, Mr. Blake, and yet it all seems but yesterday. Indeed, among other things I recall that I was at your father's home one day near the dinner hour, that your mother invited me to stop to dinner, which I did, and that with a young man's appetite, greatly enjoyed your mother's dinner of roast chicken, new potatoes and green corn. All these be but trifles, it may be, but yet it is of such as these that the affairs of the world are made up. 1 hope that I have covered the points you mention in your es- teemed letter of inquiry, and I remain, Most cordially yours, GEORGE N. JULIAN. From the home of Captain Julian to that of Mr. Andrew J. Fogg was but a few steps. The end of these journeyings, wearisome no doubt even to the few who have tried to journey with me, had now come, the last doorbell rung. But here, as in all places, I was given a most hearty welcome by both Mr. and Mrs. Fogg, he in black frock coat and she in " old lace and lavender," and wearing her hair in neat and finely curled ringlets. In the company of this most interesting couple and their niece, Mrs. Doctor Pray, I enjoyed a full hour of pleasant conversation, and replete it was with reminiscence, facts and fancies. Mr. Fogg told of the old war-time business conditions, of the war itself, of how he enlisted and was commissioned a Second Lieutenant in 1862, how, being incapacitated from military service, he was honorably discharged in 1863, how he returned to Exeter and in that year formed a partnership with Mr. Fellows, and that during that same year they issued a lot of paper money, the " shinpl&fefi'^crTp.t " or paper currency used in war-times, as stated in the St8ry ; <>f "The Parson's Donation Party in War Times." I wonder If >tnee is another man living in New Hampshire who issued such money? 90 RE-TOLD TALES OF WAR TIMES. Yes, it was pleasant and the time passed, as it had so many times before on this little pilgrimage, all too quickly, he telling of the war and of business conditions in those times, of politics and politi- cians and of things that interest men, she telling and I listening, and he too, to the little stories of life, domestic and human, all so dear to the feminine heart. No, she did not talk of either war or busi- ness except as they were incidentals to their long years of married life. These are some of the things she told, and she told them because they were dear to her, as such things are dear to all, though only the woman can tell them. She said Mr. Fogg was born in Exeter, November 19, 1831, that her maiden name was Mary E. Willis, and that she was born in Exeter, February 20, 1842, that they were married in Exeter, November 9, 1859, that they had two children, Charles and Frederick, but both had died in their youth, that they had celebrated their golden wedding November 9, 1909, that they* had always lived in Exeter, that both had always been contented there, that they were now enjoying their declining years in the com- pany of their niece, Mrs. Pray, and that all these blessings had come, to them in their dear old native town of Exeter. No, these little interesting items were not all given at once, but naively told at odd times, as the man of the house finished what he was saying, and thus gave her opportunity. And so this my last call in Exeter, the last one of the pilgrimage, was not only one that gave me a great deal of information but also one of rare entertainment as well. Indeed the quiet and peaceful scenes in this home, like those witnessed in that of Captain Julian, will long be remembered with feelings of supreme pleasure. That both health and comfort shall abide within the gates of both is the prayer of the AUTHOR. HAROLD F. BLAKE. 91 AN AFTERTHOUGHT or Why the Re-told Tales at All SOME two years ago, my mother, then visiting me in Montreal, Canada, and I spent many an evening in talking about the old Kensington days, of the days of her childhood, girlhood, maiden- hood, wifehood, motherhood and widowhood, of ten thousand things to make merry laughter, of the comparatively few that made for sadness. And so it was that all winter through, the long even- ings were made delightfully pleasant by the telling of the old tales, legend and history, fact, fiction and everyday gossip even, that was current in the old days in Kensington, Hampton Falls, Seabrook and other towns nearby. Mother was endowed with a very strong, vigorous and forceful intellect, a very tenacious memory, and to a very high degree had also the gift of mimicry. Possessing these three essentials she was a good story-teller. To the many stories she told of men and women, of things and events, I could add not a few of my own. And so it came to pass that one evening towards spring, after an unusual number of stories of the days in Kensington when " Goosey " Palmer, "Turkey" Tilton and "Chicken" Blake made weekly trips to Boston, each with his two-horse wagon-load of meat, poul- try, butter, cheese, eggs, fruit and vegetables, when for eight months of the year the working day for the farmer and the farmer's wife were 17 hours long; of the days of the brick oven, of baked beans, both hot and cold, of bean porridge, of fried salt pork every morning, with apple, of "fried Injun pudden," of rye pancakes and pure maple syrup, or old-fashioned boiled cider apple sauce dur- ing all the cold months of the year, of the home-made cheese, sausages and candles, and when the home grown corn, whey and milk fed hogs were killed and their hams and shoulders were smoked with the sweet corn cobs in the big chimney. Of the days of " Squire " Hilton and Elsie Hoig, of Jerry Poor and Mrs. Jenkins, of Gard Clifford and Polly Ann Brown, of "Squire" Shaw and Betty Greenleaf, of Mrs. Winckley, who wore the breeches, of Joe Poor, with his tuning fork, Dr. Williams, with his calomel, 92 RE-TOLD TALES OF WAR TIMES. Dr. Brown, with his ipecac, and Dr. Osgood, with his lambkill. Of the days when Thomas Whittemore preached to the Universal- ists twice each Sunday, and at "meridian," between sermons as it were, with his host drank a glass of "hot toddy" and later in the day quaffed both " stirrup-cup " and "night-cap" from the glasses placed upon the wooden trencher, as the custom was. Of the days of Billy Hilton and his fiddle, huskings, donation and quilting parties and barn-raisings, of Albert Chase at his forge and Jonty Tuck in his tan-pits, when John Nudd was the cooper, John Blais- dell the stone-mason, "Tilt" Blake, Jerry Blake and Joe Tilton the carpenters, and John Davis, the basket-maker. Of the days and events leading up to the Civil War, of the war itself and of the years following. When she had finished saying these things she stopped and abruptly said: "But who of the coming generations will tell of these things? Who will tell about your father and Uncle Bill, oj; Lewis and Captain Gove, of George and Henry Blake, of Nute, Jim, Frank and Ed Austin, of Bill, John and Warren Hodgdon, of Charles and Henry Tuck, Jerry and Joe Tilton, of Jim Brown, Ed Fellows, Amos and Ed Rowell, of Sam Lamprey, Weare Nudd and Jack Shaw, of Harvey Sanborn, Charles E. and Albert A. Batch- elder, of Johnny Shaw and Hen Crosby, of the Hilliards, Prescotts, Rowes and Wadleighs, and all the rest? Someone ought to do this! Do it before it is too late! Why don't you do it? " And it came to pass that I found myself asking the question, "Why not?" And her answer came when she saw printed in the Exeter News- Letter some of the stories we had told each other during the long winter evenings in Montreal, and none enjoyed the reading of them as she did. But alas ! not for a great while could she enjoy them as of old. Returning to her home in Lynn. Mass., her daughters arranged a birthday party for her, her eighty-fifth natal day. This took place on May 27, 1916, she entering into the spirit of the occasion heartily, and apparently in her usual health. Sitting in the seat of honor she cut and passed her cake to her numerous children, grand- children and other kith and kin who had gathered to do her honor. HAROLD F. BLAKE. 93 Though the day was one of unalloyed pleasure to her and to those about her, alas! it proved to be the last gala day for her, for in a few days, to the surprise of all, she lay down upon her bed for the last time, weary, weak and worn. The journey, eighty-five years, had been a long one, and as with all mothers, many of her days had been days of labor; ay, of pain and suffering that her children might live; but they were now soon numbered. She lingered but a few short weeks and then the end, she passing away August 24, 1916. I am taking pains to tell these things to you, my dear old soldier friends, for this reason: Though you had asked me many times in years gone by to tell your story, it is but just for me to say that had my mother passed away a few months earlier, or had she not made the visit to Montreal, alone in her eighty-fourth year, and there with me enjoyed the telling and listening to the old Kensington stories, only a few of which are to be found within these covers, and she had not asked the question: " Why don't you do it? " then there would have been no "reminiscent stories" told in the News- Letter, nor this booklet printed; and, therefore, the Author can well and truthfully say that if any pleasure or profit shall come to the readers of these re-told tales full credit, therefore, belonged to the soldier's widow, my dear mother, Mary C. Blake. THE END. DATE DUE IHIIIMIll Hill Hill" 1 "" A 000 478 928 5